


The Hinge of Destiny

by kayura_sanada



Series: Fanfiction.Net Archive [14]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, And Is In The Beginning Of The Story, Battle, Blood and Injury, Dealing With Trauma, Fake Science, Found Family, M/M, No MCD In The Parallel Universe, Parallel Universes, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Science Fiction, The Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker Is The Alternate Universe Duo Maxwell, The MCD Is The Characters From The Original Universe, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 133,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23394865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: In a world where everything has gone horribly wrong, Duo busies himself with a last-ditch effort to escape – and perhaps prevent. But Duo's last-ditch effort pulls him to a different dimension, and he finds that everything he knew no longer exists.This is an unfinished and abandoned project first posted on ff.net from 09/22/14 to 09/24/16. I struggled internally with whether to carry this over to AO3 in its unfinished state, but ultimately decided that this is a series to archive my old ff.net works and thus should include everything, just in case people ever wish to find it again.
Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner
Series: Fanfiction.Net Archive [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/867618
Comments: 50
Kudos: 21





	1. Options

**Author's Note:**

> This story was initially started for someone named Mischievous Kitsune on ffnet, who came to me with the idea of a parallel universe and worked with me to hash out the details. It was abandoned two years later after I discouragingly realized MK had abandoned the work and was no longer reading or reviewing.

Everything started just a few months before Operation Meteor, but no one paid attention to it then. War destroyed so much on its own that all other destruction was blamed on it, as well. And then the war ended, and there was so much waste that a new pile didn't make anyone blink. And of course Maremaia's little siege distracted everyone enough.

And by then, after things settled enough for people to notice, it was too late.

At first, the extra weapons in the abandoned Alliance buildings were shipped out to be sent into the sun, and no one thought for a second about the uranium or plutonium in them. No one considered what might have happened to the soil, the air, around these abandoned, unchecked sites. And then, after all that had already had its way, no one thought what might happen if a few surviving White Fang members decided to explore some of these buildings without first testing to make sure the old safety measures had been turned off.

By the time Quatre first started coughing, it was too late.

Duo shivered slightly in the cold; the heating had needed to be shut down the day before in order to ensure there was enough energy for the jump. He leaned heavily on the metal table before him and closed his eyes. He was insane to even think this. Heero would have laughed at him. Well. Smirked. Quatre would have laughed, and that would have made Trowa join in.

Duo's heart hammered in his chest. No. He couldn't think about any of that. How much time did he have? Not much. Maybe none. Maybe White Fang had already found him, and they were closing in on his pathetic little base, and he would end up dead like the rest.

He closed his hands into fists. No. If he could just get this ridiculous machine of the doctors to work, then he might have a chance to set things right. And if not... if not, then at least he wouldn't be alone.

He looked behind him, toward the door. The bar holding it latched remained untouched as the world outside rattled. Duo held his breath, a ridiculous instinct as the underground station trembled. The ceiling, already bent alarmingly in the middle, groaned a bit.

The room shook again, and a couple papers slid off the desk. Whatever. He didn't have time to care about them; they were old news, anyway. If he hadn't managed to get this to work, then it wasn't going to. And because he needed it to, it damn well better.

He turned to the only other furniture in the room – he'd gotten rid of the bed when he'd run out of screws and springs. The thing was a monstrosity; he hadn't been able to go out and get good, solid, reliable materials, since White Fang had decimated the entire damn planet and had all the shuttles off-world locked tight. As if the colonies were even inhabitable now, the radiation from the uranium oxide drowning each one in deadzone soup.

But of course, of the few who found themselves surviving the radiation, Duo had to be one of them. White Fang members had to account for several, as well. Because why not.

Another rumble, and they were definitely getting closer. Dust drained down from the ceiling. He rushed to the shower-stall-come-transporter and turned the thing on for the first time. The dashboard within lit up, and he let out a relieved sigh. He didn't have the time to mess with the wiring again. He turned back to the desk, to the old laptop – Heero's old laptop. Duo's lungs burned, looking at the thing. Maybe he should have gone out with Heero that day, but it wouldn't have made a difference. Only Heero wouldn't have died alone, and Duo would be standing in an underground maintenance shaft about to do something as stupid as try one of the doctor's old blueprints like he was the freakin' Doctor and the shower stall the TARDIS.

"Okay. Okay." This time when the world shook, it wasn't from above. Duo grimaced. "Fuckin' bastards won't leave me alone for five minutes. Five years should be enough, right?" He bit his lip. Five years in the past. That would work, right? He could stop all this from happening. "Right." He pressed it in and turned back to the shower stall – gods, he needed to stop calling it that, or else he'd never be able to make himself do what he was about to do.

"Not like this isn't nuts to begin with," he muttered. His voice echoed in the room, as it always did. It was answered by no one. He shivered. "Oh, well. If I'm crazy, then there's no one left to care, anyway."

The words nearly propelled him forward on their own. He went to the shower – the TARDIS (and he managed to laugh a bit at his own joke) and booted up the system. The lone light in the corner flickered, then finally died. Another thump rained more dust – and what looked like far too much plaster – on top of the machine. The thump came from outside the room, and he cursed. _Must_ White Fang use every single last missile and rocket in their now-overstocked arsenal? He was just one fuckin' man. They couldn't possibly consider him a threat anymore.

Of course, if he got this stupid, ridiculous machine to work, then he could very quickly become a threat – before they ever had the chance to become one themselves.

But at the moment, getting the damn thing to work was mission number one.

"Right, Heero?" he said, and hated how hollow his voice sounded in the empty room. The TARDIS only amplified the echo. He took a deep breath. The dashboard was little more than an old video recording monitor and a keyboard. Wires slid from it all to the computer chips plastered to the walls of the shower stall, then twined around the metal bars that tried to stabilize the shower stall's frame out to the wall, then to Heero's laptop. If things went well – and even now, he wasn't holding his breath – the entire contraption would portalize to the new time – old time? – with him. And in order to prove to the doctors that he wasn't mad, he would need the laptop and the videos he'd recorded on it.

He shifted from foot to foot as the rumbling got worse. He heard an audible crack from up above. The stupid shower stall / TARDIS shook. He ended up having to pull his hands away from the keyboard for a moment as the thing shook. If he typed the wrong coordinates in, the backspace button wouldn't be able to fix the mistake. Once the earth calmed down, however, he heard a banging on the door. He cursed. "Come on, come on..."

The tiny monitor was too small to read everything he typed, and he just had to hope that he didn't mess up as his fingers blurred over the keys. The crashes against the door got louder, then changed to a creaking boom. Duo slammed his hands on either side of the keys, nearly falling out of the damn thing. He pulled the damn stall door – reinforced now with metal from a spaceship, the metal still brownish with old blood – closed.

It seemed to be what the stupid machine had been waiting for, because suddenly the lights changed to a blueish color and a humming started. The wires off the monitor sparked. He couldn't see what was happening outside the TARDIS, didn't know how Heero's laptop was taking the strain. He imagined it busting, burning, melting, crackling apart, his last tether to Heero gone, and nearly tore the damn door open again. But the metal beneath his feet was trembling, and it was too late.

He heard the maintenance door wrench apart. The screech of twisted metal tore through the rising sound of... TARDIS. Duo winced at the noise, then covered his ears as the sounds of the TARDIS... _pulsed_. It was like he could hear the actual soundwaves, like he was listening to space, the high-pitched whining of the Earth circling around its axis. He hissed as his very skin reverberated with it.

Another screeching sound, and a wave of force blasted against the TARDIS. Duo rocked on his feet, finally losing his balance and banging his shoulder against the stall. Something cracked. He didn't know if it was the TARDIS or something much less tangible. Then he stumbled and smacked his head against the side of the stall, and he wondered if maybe the cracking sound was his body breaking apart. He couldn't tell. It was too loud to feel pain.

Something banged on the outside of the TARDIS. It was definitely probably not a normal time-jumping bang. Something screeched. He thought he heard something on the door. Then the world tilted upside down. The thing clawing at the door stopped.

The silence then was so sudden and oppressing he thought he eardrums might burst. As if in a vacuum, the stall seemed to float. Like it was drifting, unweighted. There was absolutely no sound at all. When he breathed, the noise was like a shotgun blast. He held his breath.

It only took another moment, but then sound returned, ripping like the shearing of metal, the echoes of it thrumming through the air like heartbeats, until the TARDIS shook in its own earthquake and finally stilled once more.

Duo's head split, and he crumpled to the floor of the stall.

* * *

A few months after Maremaia and Dekim Barton surrendered, Quatre started coughing. He wasn't the first, but he was the first in Duo's circle. It soon became apparent that it wasn't just a cold or a bad reaction to the renovations that began nearly before the end of the war, as Quatre had claimed. Lied. And every day that passed by that Quatre got worse, and worse, Duo saw Trowa backing away, leaving, turning more and more into the stolid man he'd been before Quatre had melted him. Then Quatre had died. Two months later, Trowa had died, too, in a suicide run against the growing White Fang force. Duo had watched both of their deaths.

It had been the dying White Fang members who'd made the trip into the irradiated weapons bases on Earth and in the colonies. Their efforts made the radiation worse, exposed the air to more unsecured uranium oxide. And then those dying bastards had gotten their hands on missiles that hadn't fallen into disrepair, and they'd staged war on everything. On the Gundams, for stopping them the first time. On Earth, for existing when it was the colonies that should rule (and damn Milliardo for letting that idea gain any sort of foundation; once validated by him, there was no stopping it). Wufei and Heero and Duo had all set out to stop them. For a while, it had been like the war, minus Duo's best friend, and they'd managed to route much of the campaign. They saved refugees from Libra's attack when White Fang sent a missile there, calling the bombing the anniversary or justice. They'd saved a few more when they destroyed an entire bombing center, and they'd even kept the radiation from the huge blast contained.

But it wasn't enough. Even with Sally Po's help – Sally Po, who had gone on an iron lung before the hospital she'd stayed in was bombed, Wufei loyally by her side at the time – they'd been rerouted. It soon became about keeping themselves alive – something Heero couldn't stand for.

Two weeks after Wufei's death, merely ten months after Maremaia's uprising, Heero went out on his own suicide run, barely giving Duo time to do more than splutter, "you've got to be kidding!" before he took to a shuttle alone and headed for outer space. Duo, disbelieving and unaware of Heero's follow-through, only learned of Heero's death through a recorded video White Fang proudly showed two days later, complete with a taping of Heero's body as it froze in the vacuum of space.

And that was how Duo came to be alone, hunkered in an old bunker of Quatre's deep in the desert, desperate enough to read one of the doctors' old blueprints and come up with his own suicide run.

* * *

Duo decided to call the time lapse a few minutes, because saying he may or may not have lost consciousness was not nearly manly enough. So after a few minutes, when his head felt less like it was trying to rearrange itself in the confines of his skull, he stood – and he didn't wobble or have to grab the sides of the stall to hold himself up, no, sir, he did not – and checked the tiny monitor. There was plenty of text. He was certain it would be useful if only he could read it.

Well. Then the only way to find out what the hell had happened was to get the stall door open. Not so hard. The thing was kind've pathetic, anyway.

And then he noticed that some of the metal had kind've welded itself together. And by kind've he meant completely. Great.

Trying to get the leverage to open a door welded shut was difficult in and of itself. Trying to open a door that had been welded shut was a whole 'nother problem. The door might have budged. An inch. Possibly. Duo decided to be optimistic on it and finally collapsed back. He heard the ground rumbling, a different kind of rumble than the psychotic acid trip that had happened after he'd instigated the TARDIS. It took him a good five minutes to realize the shaking was due to a train passing by. His heart leaped to his throat. The trains were running. He'd managed it. Or, well, he'd managed something.

Oh, then like _hell_ he was staying in here.

He tried again, pushing like hell against the door – maybe another inch – and then trying to shimmy his weight back and forth to get the thing to tip. It might have jiggled a tiny bit. Okay. He looked around his little TARDIS – he could really use that space-time dimension thing that made the inside of the real TARDIS bigger – and thought. Wires. Best not to pull them out. One loose wire in his mini-TARDIS and his trip could be cut a little short.

He rubbed his chest absently and turned in one complete circle. There was a little less metal on the ceiling, and though it nearly brought him physical pain – he rubbed his chest again and wondered just how many bruises the trip had been happy enough to give him – to destroy the TARDIS he'd spent over three months building, he twisted himself upside down into a handstand and kicked up. The ceiling gave slightly to his kick with a loud groan, and four kicks later, his foot broke straight through the top. His attempt to switch his position had him momentarily on his back flailing like a dying turtle, but finally he was up and reaching on his tip-toes for the opening. Another rumble passed outside his rather well-made prison (nothing like a good self-pat on the back), and he wondered how long he'd been at this ridiculous attempt at escape. Who knew traveling through time could be so hazardous? Ha ha.

After some pushing and pressing and a little more odd maneuvering, and the top of the TARDIS was open wide enough for him to shimmy himself through. The edges of the stall scratched along his back and chest and thighs as he crawled out, and he thought he heard something tear. Wonderful. He hadn't had time to pack extra clothing, so it was now the hobo look for him. He couldn't wait.

It was as he finally landed outside the TARDIS that he stopped cold. It was definitely the same maintenance room as before. The electricity worked – there was more light than the dingy bub Duo had kept going on the dying generator. But instead of the usual switchboards, there were buttons. Duo went up to them. They were locked in plastic cases, but please, locks were always a joke to the great Duo Maxwell. They lit up the entire room in blues and, in two spots, red. Duo cocked his head as he considered it. Obviously they were supposed to work like the switchboard; The things were lined up in neat little rows, and each little group sat under headings of LW-5 and LW-6, blah blah, straight across. He wrinkled his nose and forfeited his give a damn to check and see what lie beyond the tiny room.

The subway station was no longer a dead tomb of darkness. There was light. All up and down the thing, illuminating the tracks and the walls and... Duo's heart pounded. It was so normal. So bright.

He hurriedly stepped out. He had no idea what time it was, where Howard or Doctor G was... the laptop.

He ran back inside, horrified he'd nearly forgotten it, and stilled. The laptop, the last surviving piece of Heero, of his time, of his life, was cracked straight down the middle. He closed his eyes. Okay. It wasn't the end. He grabbed the hard drive, though it was split like the rest of the machine. He rubbed his chest and looked out of the room again. No trains that he could hear. He had to just keep looking forward. So Heero was officially gone. He'd been gone for months.

He hurried away from the room, hugging the edges of the station. The texture of the walls was the same as from whence he came, and the knowledge was oddly jarring. Everything was the same, but it was different. Seeing everything as it had once been, after so many months of destruction and debris and death... when he finally came upon a subway platform and hauled himself up – and there were the looks, the silent shifting of bodies that said 'stay away from the hobo' better than any words – he had to stop and stare for a few moments. People. Well, obviously people, it was a subway platform, so there were probably always people. But _people_. People looking down at their phones, reading magazines, conversing within small groups. Their clothes were new, not ratty or torn – though why were women wearing belts over their shoulders and men around their wrists and thighs? And why did their phones make strange blipping noises whenever they passed close by one another? – but they were obviously unafraid of any potential danger. They weren't trying to crawl into hidey-holes much too small for them in order to escape the thunderous quaking that should have been happening, but wasn't.

The world down here was calm, still, even as the floor rumbled, signaling another train, and suddenly there was a pattern to everyone's movements as they hurried to the yellow line. Duo let the movement shake him from his stupor, and he moved toward the exit. As he went, he marveled over the clean air, the lack of dust or grit, the lack of sickness on people's faces as they slowly died of cancer or tumors or just plain malnutrition. He thought he could smell fresh bread, and when he exited the subway, nearly bumping into a racing man as he nearly vaulted down the stairs, he saw a bakery just in front of the subway station, luring in hungry commuters.

And then he saw the rest, and he paled.

The cars on the road were sleek, slim, a style he'd never seen before. Several of them had people talking on phones or eating or _reading_ , for crying out loud, and he realized many of them were automated. He was fairly positive the technology had been there, during the war, but the money had been appropriated to war funds. The money had been used to start reconstruction before... well, before reconstruction had no longer been an option.

But when he looked around, he saw other peculiarities. A stop signs' letters blinked on as a car came near. The crosswalk signal chimed, and people who were reading and texting simply started walking across the street, most not even bothering to look up. Then there was something slightly off about the clothes they wore; women wore shirts with high necklines. Men wore pants that nearly revealed the ridges in the bulges of their pants. Duo looked up and shivered. The subway he'd chosen was now surrounded by skyscrapers, where before there had been nothing but rubble. Few buildings had been over three stories tall, and the top stories had been uninhabitable, crushed beneath the weight of broken beams and crumbled plaster. Every skyscraper looked like a death trap, both for those within and those nearby. He decided to search for some sort of transport and crossed the street.

He felt like a tourist, taking in all the familiar and unfamiliar things around him. It was odd enough, having actual buildings and people, everyone perfectly fine with walking around, no one hunkering down and glancing furtively left and right. No one running to him and begging him to help them, save them, as gunfire rapport nearly drowned out their voices.

Everything was normal, and while it made his heart pound in anticipation of an attack, it also felt... liberating. Calming. It was difficult to let the idea of it seep into his skin, but as it did, it felt nearly soothing, at the same time he thought he might throw up. He hadn't known what it was he would do when he ended up in the past, but he hadn't thought he would stay still. He was so used to running and fighting, he had just thought he would be doing that as soon as he stepped out of the TARDIS.

Or, really, if he were honest with himself, he would admit that he hadn't thought much of anything at all. He'd only thought how badly he needed to move, to _do_ something, to try to save some places that might not have been salvageable before. He hadn't really thought he could save the world, but he had thought that, just maybe, he might be able to save that which was most important to him.

It was the knowledge that the other pilots could very well be alive that made him hurry his pace.

Of course, he couldn't help but notice that most cars stopped at red lights without anyone touching anything. All cars turned on their blinkers when they turned, and the blinking sounded slightly different for left or right. Store signs obviously written by hand still blinked, and he even saw one man say, "broad sign, erase," and he stared with wide eyes as the sales and specials just disappeared. He might have stared a bit too long, because the guy asked him what he wanted to order. He waved the question away and kept walking, wondering if they even accepted normal cash on this alien planet.

There was a thought, he considered. Had he ended up on some different planet where everyone just looked human? He thought again of Doctor Who, then chuckled at himself. Had he lost his damn mind? He must have hit his head on the ride through time. Or maybe he'd been found by White Fang, and this was all a very elaborate delusion before he went six feet under.

Somehow, despite everything, the idea of having failed made him angry. He needed to find G, or maybe Howard. He needed to find out what the hell was going on.

He stopped. Turned. Stared. That stupid weather sign by the gas station. That couldn't be right. Granted, it certainly felt like a balmy sixty-seven degrees, but there was no way in hell that could be right.

AC 204.

He almost puked.

* * *

If the sign was wrong, it wasn't the only one. And every single newspaper had a seriously bad editor. And also every magazine. And packaging slips. And envelopes. And calendars.

Duo stopped looking around after he finished seeing the nearest post office's little decorations. Every box people brought in was time stamped July 17, AC 204. The calendars by each service lady said the same. Even the stamps. Oh, and when did people start putting their fingerprints on the card scanner? Because that was what they were doing – fingerprint, ding, payment accepted. No cash, no cards.

But at the same time, there was no sign of White Fang. He'd searched those newspapers for news of them, from them, orders, maybe, or demands. Maybe just news on the leaders Duo vaguely remembered. Nothing. Nothing anywhere. No mention of White Fang. Had they been defeated? Had Duo's time jump been for nothing? Had it all been unnecessary?

But it didn't matter, because the one thing he'd planned on, the one thing he'd wanted to do, couldn't be done. The other pilots were still dead. Trowa. Wufei. Quatre. Heero. He hadn't managed to save any of them.

Almost, he thought to return to his TARDIS. But why bother? The thing would need to be recreated, and he obviously hadn't managed to do something right. What if he tried to go backward again and ended up fifty years in the future? Seventy years in the past? His chest burned, ached, nearly tore. He rubbed it hard. Even if he could get the thing working again – and, well, parts would no longer be a problem, since the world was apparently once again in working order – and...

And he stopped there, too, his brain finally pushing through the empty about of 'wtf' that it had slogged through for the past couple of hours.

There was no way that all of this could possibly be rebuilt in just five to six years.

Even if the battle with White Fang – well, the resistance against White Fang's overwhelming supremacy – suddenly ended the moment Duo disappeared, this many skyscrapers couldn't possibly be rebuilt. No way, no how. Even if every single person corralled themselves on this particular city, there still wasn't a way in hell. And the technology – that wouldn't be possible, either. Ll the money for such things would have been spent on the reconstruction – which would still be going on. And while Duo had traversed the city up and down, nearly wandering in a daze, he hadn't seen a single sign of any major construction anywhere. There had been a section of road closed off for rebuilding, and that was it. _It_.

Maybe he really was on the brink of death, and this illusion was extremely long and extremely boring. Or maybe he was dreaming? He pinched himself, though he had no idea why that was supposed to work; he felt the sensation of pain in his dreams, after all. He looked at a sign, then away, then back again, because he'd heard that in dreams, if you look away from something, that something will turn into something else. But the sign remained the same – fast food joint, fish burgers on sale. Which didn't sound appetizing in the slightest, despite his constant raw desire for food. He'd run low on rations a few weeks before he'd finally finished the TARDIS.

So it was real, and none of it made any sense.

Howard, he told himself firmly. G. If they were even alive. Which, he supposed, G wouldn't be. Which left Howard and the Sweepers. Or at least what was left of the Sweepers after Howard had been killed.

He covered his face with his hands. No, there was no point in going to the Sweepers, even if any of them were left (and what were the chances? Duo hadn't heard a word from them for months before even the time jump). What did he have to go on? Nothing. He was in the middle of an impossibility. A future impossibility.

He took a deep breath. Okay. What was he supposed to do when in enemy territory, or when about to embark on a difficult mission?

Stake out the area. Learn the enemy's movements. Observe.

So. He would do exactly that.

* * *

Five days later, and he thought he might have actually lost his mind.

Yes, it was, for all intents and purposes, AC 204. The war, however, had only been won a few years ago. Maremaia's uprising never occurred; it seemed the young teenager hadn't been so easily swayed by Dekim Barton, and he had been thrown in jail for attempting to incite war. The Gundam pilots had come through and stopped the war, but no one hardly knew who they were. Relena Peacecraft had suffered burns on the right side of her face and neck from trying to stop her brother on-board the Libra. Her opponents called her Two-Face. Her constituents called her martyr.

Duo wondered where Heero had been.

But a simple internet search showed him that the Sweepers still existed, and Howard's face greeted him on their site – they had a site! – so it was almost certain that the old goon still lived.

So Duo had shipped himself off to L3, where the Sweepers had apparently made their main base of operations (not on Earth?). The shipping yard was huge, way bigger than Duo would have expected for Howard and his crew. It was like one of Quatre's Winner outposts was made entirely for them; and while Duo blinked stupidly at it all as his little shuttle approached, he saw two ships hauling in and another one departing. Was there more members of the Sweepers than there'd been before? Had Howard and his crew merged with other shipping companies?

The dinky little shuttle was stopped at the landing gate, and a freakin' _code_ was demanded of him. He sighed, rolled his eyes. "The god of death is the most fearsome, miraculous beast in the universe, and we shall prostrate ourselves before his infinite glory."

There was dead silence from the other side of the comm link, but then uproarious laughter broke through the ship. Duo laughed, too, and the sound was so foreign it sent shivers up his spine. Shivers that _hurt_. It had been a long, long time since he'd last laughed. "Maxwell! Why the hell aren't you in Death's Hand?"

Duo could only assume that was the name of some ship of some sort. "Long story," he said, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. He rubbed at the ache there and worried through his list of ways to bring up... whatever the hell needed to be brought up. His psychosis? His nervous breakdown? His TARDIS? His... dimension traveling?

He pretended the last one wasn't the only one that explained the unexplainable without making him out to be a madman.

Who was he kidding? He was definitely a madman, no matter what.

"Oh, God," the person on the other side of the comm said, and Duo jumped. He recognized the voice. Greg, a guy about ten years Duo's senior. No, in this time, he'd be fifteen or sixteen years older, about. And the man had died in the first months of White Fang's assault.

His heart doubled its pace, and this time it wasn't in apprehension, but with hope. If Greg was alive, if Howard really was alive, then the other pilots could still be here. And if White Fang wasn't a problem, then he wouldn't have to fight. He wouldn't have to anything! He could just... relax. Enjoy peace like he'd been hoping to since Maremaia had been defeated. Hook up with Heero again, even though they'd done nothing more than hang out and get Heero a personality and... talk about things going further.

Oh. He rubbed his chest harder, scarcely daring to believe it. Had he traveled to a dimension where things didn't suck nearly as much?

Please let it be so.

"Oh, God, what?" Duo heard, and sucked in a sharp breath. Howard.

"Duo's in a civilian shuttle. Says it's a long story."

"Maxwell, if you broke that damn ship again, I will kill you!"

Duo laughed again. It nearly turned into something else, and he had to stop before the waterworks started. "Howard! Man, it's good to hear your voice."

"Don't try to butter me up, Maxwell! Just how totaled are we talking?"

Duo closed his eyes, even as his shuttle was given the green light, letting the voices wash over him. Greg was laughing again. It was like he'd been given a second chance. His world – there was nothing left. Even if he'd gone back in time, there was that time-divergence issue; he might have created another dimension in his going back in time, and he might have done altered nothing in his time. Or there was the idea of not altering the thing, or altering things so drastically they lost the war, or Zechs destroyed the planet, or...

Though it was painful, and heartbreaking, and made his insides twist until he thought he would puke, maybe it was for the best that he'd never arrived in another time in his world, because no matter what, it would have been nothing more than an attempt to follow after Heero, or to try to make things right in the memory of him, and maybe... maybe that wasn't necessary here.

Maybe there was still a chance for them to take it to the next level.

The thought made him jumpy, and he suddenly felt like the shuttle was taking too long, even though it was sliding securely home into the docking pit. Duo hardly had to touch the controls; the strange technology that had somehow infected the entire solar system had also infected his ship, and the thing aligned itself as if it was difficult or something. He snarled at it. It felt good. Light. Like... like he wasn't having to run anymore.

Like his friends were _alive_.

But then he realized they were all talking to him as if they knew him, and the idea clogged his mind for a little bit as it dawned on him that they were expecting another Duo – another Duo _lived here_. Somewhere. And had a ship? Or borrowed one from Howard? Or something? Which meant there was another him. He felt his brain sort've twist around and start nibbling on itself right around there. It produced a rather pounding headache.

The docking pit was huge; a few ships were docked to his right, and he started to maneuver the damn ship before something overrode everything and started leading his damn shuttle forward, as if he couldn't see that the first few ports were already filled with another ship. He sighed loudly.

"That's what you get for totaling your damn ship again." Howard outright groused. It made Duo grin, even though it was somewhat confusing. He and Howard had only really gotten to start knowing each other near the end of the war, and his time with the Sweepers afterward had gotten them a bit closer. But he'd only been with the man for a few months before he'd gone with Heero, and they'd never gotten to the point where sighs could be readily interpreted.

Still, Duo smiled. Because there was something who could understand him. He felt like he'd been given a second chance. Maybe his curse couldn't reach all the way out here. Maybe he could be safe to live a happy life here. Maybe. Hopefully.

It felt a little bit like running away, and he hurt for the world he'd left. But the place was nothing but ashes for him now. Someday, some group of rebels would rise up from those ashes and take out White Fang. Wasn't that how it always was? But it wouldn't be in Duo's time, and it wouldn't be Duo's group of rebels. Those were here. Duo rubbed his chest. He wouldn't go back, even if he could. There was nothing left for him there.

Suddenly, just as Duo's shuttle hooked into port, alarms went off. Duo jumped, his hands already slipping down to pull off his harness. Something trickled over the comm, a short static burst, and Duo suddenly feared White Fang had somehow infiltrated the Sweeper base. "Howard? Howard!" Nothing. His heart in his throat, he tore himself from his seat and raced to get a vacuum suit. The idea of losing him again...

Then the static turned into a hiss, and Duo trailed the vacuum suit behind him as he raced back to the comm panel. "Howard? I swear to Death himself, if you don't answer this godforsaken thing–"

"Who the hell are you?" Howard snapped, his voice suddenly sharp. Duo nearly reeled back. "You're not Maxwell."

Oh. Well. That meant the alarms were for him, then, didn't it? Somehow that brought nothing but relief. "I am Duo. But not your Duo. I was gonna explain this once I was on-board." He let the vacuum suit go and scratched the back of his head. The vacuum suit floated idly behind him. The alarms still blared. "I swear, old man, I'm me. It's all a little confusing."

"Shut your trap," Howard said, and the words were so not like the Howard he knew he actually did. For once. "My men are going to secure you and your vehicle. If you so much as twitch, they are under orders to shoot. I didn't tell them where to aim."

Duo blinked. "Wait – I thought this time period was peaceful?"

"The shutting up started a minute ago."

Duo snorted, nearly making a quip about him never knowing shutting up. But he decided to go with it; if he got too bad a danger feeling, he would take down Howard's men and force their talk at another time.

Duo heard them, even though they were trying to be quiet. It almost made him laugh; the Sweepers were anything but quiet, ever, and there was no way that was different here. He turned to them as they entered the shuttle, unsurprised to find Stefano, the adrenaline junkie, leading the way. He gave a jaunty little wave. Stefano had been one of the ones to die with Howard near the beginning of White Fang's insurrection. Here, it was like none of that happened.

It was almost comical how every last one of the Sweepers met his gaze and stopped stark still in the middle of the entrance. Duo threw out a snarky grin and waggled his fingers again. "Hiya, guys."

Stefano actually shook his head and blinked his eyes. Duo had to bite his damn tongue to keep from laughing. "...Duo?" he asked.

Yoshua, a skinny, tall man who had actually survived the first few months of the attack in Duo's dimension, snorted. "No way, idiot. He's too short."

Stefano squinted. Duo scowled. Make fun of him for his shortness, huh? He beamed Heero's glare at the man and actually watched him shuffle on his feet and raise his gun again. Huh. Maybe Duo had gotten better at it. "The braid?"

"Fake, idiot!"

Duo snorted. He couldn't take it anymore. "You guys sure were smarter in my dimension."

A couple in the back, two Duo didn't recognize, actually exchanged looks. Stefano was the one to lift his chin – and his gun – and snarl at Duo. "Just get moving."

Get moving, huh? So there was most likely another ship coming. Why else would they be in such a hurry to get Duo out of the docking pit? None of the men were in vacuum suits, after all. So Duo rolled his eyes and obliged, fairly positive none of them were going to shoot him. His headache, at least, dimmed at the adrenaline in his system. Nothing like guns in his face to get him reacting quicker.

The walk from the shuttle through the pit to the strip was interesting. While Stefano had apparently decided to believe Duo was nothing more than an illusion, the others kept sneaking glances at him like he was going to molt into some alien beast. It was amusing. It was entertaining. It beat the hell out of hunkering down in an abandoned subway tunnel putting together bits and twine for a sci-fi blueprint that only had a ten percent margin for victory.

Well, not to say that his plans had gone off successfully, per se, but hey, they were good enough.

The strip was much more chaotic than Duo had been prepared for. He'd thought there would be some sort of Sweeper armed guard to meet him, the place cleared out of any civvies, or maybe a wall of Sweepers prepared in case he made a run for it. But as soon as he stepped out of the pit, he understood how all of that would have been impossible. When he'd seen what had looked like a number of ships entering and leaving port, he'd apparently missed that the pit was still chock-full of ships and cargo and people. One look around the strip showed him there were more people that could ever be cleared out in just a few minutes. Right down the long aisle of merely this one landing dock had about three different ships loading up cargo, and another couple refueling for takeoff. Even with the guns and the frowny faces, Stefano and his men had to slow down their little procession as people simply continued on their merry way, completely unperturbed by the myriad of Sweeper guards escorting Duo. Hell, one person turned, looked, and outright grinned. "Pissed off Howard again?"

Duo grinned and shrugged, even as Stefano and his entourage growled. "What can I say? It's a skill."

The man snorted and shook his head. He readjusted the box in his hands before walking away. Sedately.

Duo nearly laughed.

Stefano upped the pace then, which was a joke, since he nearly had to stop stone-cold still four times before they made it through the strip to the outer bay. At least there the place _had_ been cleared, and no one was nearby save Jonah and yet another Sweeper Duo didn't recognize. But the point of clearing the place out was lost when they'd just gone through so many civilians to get there, and the reactions of those civilians made Duo snarky enough to waggle his fingers and say, "hey there, Jonah." The man's eyes had widened progressively from the moment Duo had stepped through the bay doors, and they nearly popped out of his head then. This time Duo _did_ laugh. "This is great, you guys, thanks so much for the celebrity treatment."

"Shut your mouth," Stefano said, and Duo rolled his eyes.

"Stefano, you and I both know damn well I could rip that gun from your hands and blow your brains out before your friends had a chance to do more than blink. We both also know that the only reason I'm not doing that is because I don't want to. Keep messing with me. See what happens."

Despite how much the man had decided to believe Duo was a fake, he still paled at the words. Because instinctively, Duo guessed, the man knew Duo was right.

The bay was large, and boring-white, everything white, with no paintings on any of the hulls. Totally, completely impartial. Military precise. It made Duo's back straighten, made the adrenaline starting to simmer down rev right back up again. Maybe he'd been wrong to think this time was peaceful? Howard certainly didn't seem to have calmed down any. Or maybe it was PTSD? If the man had ever suffered from any such thing.

Their footsteps nearly echoed in the damn place, and Duo made a little game out of trying to make a beat between his footsteps and the Sweepers', until Yoseph found out what he was doing and started deliberately messing up the rhythm. It felt _so good_ to have someone glare at him like that again. Like coming home.

He rubbed his chest. His headache was coming back.

He caught sight of several Sweepers as they made their way around the bay, many of them with backs turned to him as they dealt with someone trying to go the way Duo and his entourage were headed. There were more than a few cure words bandied about before Duo was escorted into the inner bay.

Here was where everything was lit up, and he relaxed once more. Colors finally painted themselves over the wall, and they were in the usual Sweeper mess of splashes of paint on each wall, one bright red, the other grass green, another so light a blue it was almost white, and a painfully large amount of horrible pictures, like kid's drawings on a refrigerator, decorating every square inch of the walls and even parts of the ceiling and floor. One of the guys had obviously been adding something before the alarms sounded and the 'breach' went up, and the paints sat idly beside a picture that may or may not have been intended to be a sort of dog, or maybe a goat, and the Sweeper beside it was blinking rapidly at the picture Duo himself made as he walked past. He pointed to the wall. "Goat?"

The man mutely shook his head.

Duo tilted his head. "Dog?"

Another mute shake of his head, and Stefano snarled some more. Duo was ready to pat his head like a dog and say, 'down, boy.' "I'm lost, dude; what the hell is it?"

The man opened his mouth. Closed it. "Horse."

Duo laughed good-naturedly. "The hell it is!"

Yoshua hurried him along then, and Duo didn't even care that the man was glaring steel bands down on him, because just then he saw Howard. And it didn't matter to him in the slightest how angry Howard was, or how his hands sat on his hips like he was some battalion commander about to order a man's execution, because Howard was alive and it was _so good_ to see his face. Duo grinned like the Cheshire cat. "Howard!"

The man did not look pleased to see him.

Duo noticed the man stood in a niche – he couldn't say small, even though it was small compared to the rest of the base – that housed the communication hub. Greg sat slightly behind Howard and to his left, speaking to someone through the comm link in hushed tones. And then there was someone else, a gun in her hand, glaring at him like he was slime on her shoe. The glare only faltered for a moment before she held out her gun, an obvious warning to stay where he was. As if he had any inclination at the moment to muscle his way through a sudden blockade that was Stefano and Yoshua and their team.

Howard looked him up and down. "Wow, you really worked at this, didn't you, boy?"

He wasn't one hundred percent certain what 'this' was, but since they obviously thought he wasn't actually himself, he figured 'this' had to do with the braid and the looks, which gee, they bore an uncanny resemblance to Duo, didn't they? Go figure.

Duo held up his fingers. "Did you guys take my fingerprints? I mean, I know you did where I come from, because you thought I was just some thief – G did, I mean – and you had it on file." Howard frowned, and Duo wiggled his fingers. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "Take my prints."

Howard's frown deepened. "As if I'm stupid enough to come that close to you."

Duo rolled his eyes and grabbed Yoshua's gun from his grip. Stefano nearly shot him, and he ducked down and kicked the thing from his hand. Two others wavered, not knowing if they should shoot or not, and Duo ignored them for the last two, who looked at him with wide eyes and raised their guns on him on instinct. He knocked one out with a karate chop, carefully using the man as a meat shield from the woman beside Howard, who looked about ready to shoot him down. Then he held out Yoshua's gun. "There. Now you have my fingerprints, right?" He tossed the thing out of arm's reach. "Now I'm going to let this gentleman go, and you're not going to shoot me." He let his gaze go a little Shinigami for a second, enough to make the men waffling on what to do drop their guns to their sides and not. The woman looked ready to spit. "Put your gun down, lady."

Her eyes flashed fire, and in that instant, Duo jumped. Because, even though the clothing was different, the height different – she'd grown a couple more inches – the hair a bit longer, and the attitude completely off, more like Noin or Sally Po than the woman he knew, it was her; he knew it. That fire was the exact same. Still, he squinted and turned his head as if he was inspecting an alien creature. "Hilde?"

She snapped her gun straight back up, as if she hadn't lowered it at all. "You don't get to call me that, you fake," she snarled, and the fail insult was the clincher. It _was_ her. She seemed to catch the look in his eyes and narrowed her own. He seriously thought she just might shoot him.

Just what the hell had happened to her in this dimension?

Well, whatever it was, at least she was alive, too. Even with her distrust – hell, downright hatred – he couldn't help the giddiness fighting the pain in his chest. She was _alive_. Anything else could be worked through.

But while his antics had earned Hilde's ire, Howard had begun studying Duo from head to toe, eyes narrowing, lips thinning, hair flapping in some nonexistent breeze – no, really, there must have been a fan or something on the consoles behind him, because his hair was moving, for some reason.

And Howard finally gestured toward the gun. "Someone bring that here."

Yoshua was the one to do it, smart enough to avoid handling the part Duo had touched, and kept well out of Duo's reach before sliding back to hand the weapon over to Howard. The man turned to someone else, finally showing Duo his back – well, his shoulders. That weird goatee-beard quivered as the man murmured to the person standing beside Greg. Whatever he said made Hilde tense.

Someone took the gun away. Duo nearly rubbed his hands together with glee. Then, of course, came the question of whether fingerprints were the same for the same person in two dimensions. Maybe they were different? How could he know? It's not like people were ever able to test the idea one way or the other. Hm.

Howard lifted his head. "Tell me something only I would know."

"You snip your goatee beard every day," Duo said automatically. A couple of men around him actually chuckled. These men were not the ones Duo had easily disarmed. The chuckles might also have been a little nervous.

"Something the rest of my men don't know, Duo."

It was the first time the man had called him Duo, and he wasn't the only one to notice. Hilde gave the codger a scandalized look. Duo outright grinned. "Old man! I knew you weren't that stupid. Okay." He thought for a minute, even as Howard seemed to lean back and forth between annoyed and amused. Like he didn't know which was more appropriate to the situation. "Let's see. I don't know for sure what we talked about together here, sorry. Normally I would bring up us talking about the moon, how it looks from the colonies, you know? Because it was the first time you and I really had a serious conversation, at least, where I'm from." But Howard didn't seem to know quite what Duo was talking about, and he hurried on, kind've hurt that he was still the only person with that memory. "You absolutely, one hundred percent despise Tallgeese. You think it was a work of art for its time, possibly immortal in having been the first Gundam prototype. But you think the thing is clunky and top-heavy and needs serious re-writing. You even rewrote it twice – where I'm from – simply because the thing gave you headaches. Screw what Zechs ordered. The thing was a beast. Oh, and you thought the Wing Zero was spun from gold. And the Libra was another clunker; the thing was pathetic, lumbering–"

"How do you know about Tallgeese?"

The question wasn't one Duo would have ever expected, and he looked at Howard like the man was a loon. "Um, because it was on the battlefield? A lot?"

Howard frowned. "You're what? Eighteen? Twenty? You haven't even seen the battlefield, son."

Son? Duo nearly crowed. Howard had only called him that a couple of times, in private, but it was a word Howard only used for his men. For the Sweepers. "What are you – oh, right, the battle started late here. We fought in 195 where I'm from."

Someone snorted. Another person cocked his gun again. Duo glanced at the man out of the corner of his eyes, ready to take him down the moment he got too rambunctious.

"And... where you come from," Howard said, mimicking Duo's words down to their very intonation (which sounded hilarious coming from him), "Tallgeese was... used?"

"Uh, yeah? By Zechs. The final form was used by Treize."

Howard made a strangled sound.

Duo blinked. "I guess that's not what happened here?" Maybe he should have done a little more research. Cracked into a couple of databases, looked into some military reports. But he'd just wanted to _move_ , to find something he could relate to. A port in the storm. Or perhaps just some sort of proof that he hadn't failed completely; that he was no longer horridly, horridly alone.

He rubbed his chest and looked around. He still had his meat shield, not because he was holding the man down, but because the man didn't seem able to make himself move. Yoshua was beside Howard, apparently turned defensive from his loss of his weapon. Stefano had picked his own gun back up, but he didn't aim it t Duo anymore. The man seemed lost, like a big, brawny puppy. Stefano probably knew Duo well enough to recognize his skill, which meant Stefano had fallen sharply on the 'it _is_ Duo' side of the fence.

The others, those Duo didn't recognize, seemed confused more by Howard's lack of fear than by Duo's abilities. That would work out for him if they tried to fight him off. He would be able to take care of them in no time at all. Stefano would be easy, as well. Duo couldn't believe it, but the biggest threat in the room was Hilde. And that twisted his brain into Rubik's Cube knots.

"You know I hate Tallgeese how?" Howard asked.

"You ranted about the thing. Then you ranted about the people piloting it. Said the thing should have been scrapped years ago."

Howard's face contorted oddly. "It was."

Huh. Oh. Hm. Well. That explained why no one had seen the thing in this dimension. He guessed. Maybe.

"By who?" Duo asked, and it seemed their light conversation had gone on quite long enough.

Hilde plastered herself in front of Howard, her gun pointed straight at Duo's heart – well, there was something that hadn't changed, at least; the woman was still emotional (unless she couldn't aim for the head here, which would make her less of a crack shot than her now-dead counterpart). He didn't know whether to smile in relief over finally finding something familiar in her, or frown at the memory of the Hilde he'd known.

It was a relief, being here with these people. It was. But at the same time, he couldn't help but notice differences – the _least_ of which being these people's ages. He'd still lost those precious to him. But there was something here. There had to be; he had to believe it.

"You're not Duo," she declared, and he found that something similar there, for an instant, in the quick assertion she spat at him. The woman was nothing if not strong in her convictions. "Who are you?"

"I am Duo," he said. "Just not the Duo you know." He sent Howard a look, beaming it past Hilde's left shoulder. "You know the most about what the doctors worked on, don't you? All that fancy shit they threw to the wayside. Right where they kept the blueprints for Wing Zero, they left blueprints for something a little, um..." He waved his hand in the air. "Well, the blueprint for the Zero system was weird enough, I guess, so what the hell? A time machine."

The man's eyes narrowed. "And you come from the past."

The man's tone was dubious, and Duo couldn't help but snort. "Yeah, 'cause that makes sense with what I've been saying." Howard didn't seem surprised by what Duo said. Not at all. In fact, the old man actually seemed to be considering it. And apparently, that managed to hit all up and down Hilde's nerves.

"You're trying to tell me – tell _us_ ," she said, glaring shortly at Howard, "that you're... what? Traveling with the Doctor?"

Duo grinned brilliantly. Well, that was certainly something that hadn't changed. She was still a fan of Doctor Who. It had been through her that he'd been (forcefully) introduced to the show. The very, very long show. He blamed her for the name of the TARDIS. If it weren't for her, he wouldn't have even know which references to make to make fun of himself for his harebrained scheme.

"Wouldn't that be awesome?" Duo said. "Me as the Doctor? Actually, it might not be the best idea. I'm a little more violent than him. Don't you think? I mean, the man absolutely hated guns. I look at a gun and go, 'hey! Free souvenir!' It's not very Doctor-like."

Hilde didn't seem what to do with that response.

There was some sort of commotion behind him, and he wondered if the hall was no longer cleared out. It sounded almost like someone tearing down a warpath. Hilde looked relieved. Duo acted automatically, twisting around the man still willingly staying as Duo's meat-shield and posing the guy in front of him. He was fairly positive Howard would do something about Hilde, but the new person...

Then he blinked. And blinked again. It was kind've creepy. The man standing in front of him wasn't anyone Duo would recognize, and yet the face was the exact same he saw in the mirror every day. But older. And scarred a little! There was a scar on his lower lip. Why? What had happened?

But it was definitely himself. Duo. Well, another Duo. Some Duo other than himself but still himself. And oddly enough, this Duo had an even longer braid than Duo. And he was taller! Only by a couple of inches, but they were a couple of envious inches that made Duo would to squeeze the information on how the man had managed to get them. Was Duo some sort of late bloomer growth-wise? Maybe he would get another inch or two before the year was out.

Of course, that was going on the assumption that the him staring at him wasn't going to flip ape-shit and kill him. Or maybe just kill him without going ape-shit? So long as Hilde, who was looking rather vindictive, if Duo's peripheral vision was to be trusted, didn't pull the other him into some sort of frenzy.

Wait. His heart pounded thick in his chest, and pain blossomed from every beat. There was another him. Well, of course there was another him. But there was another him! He – why was there another him here? "Why are you here?" he asked, and couldn't believe the words had the audacity to come out.

"Why wouldn't I come back to work?" Duo – the other Duo – asked, and the words clanged around in his skull. He worked for the Sweepers? Which made him a Sweeper. Which... was confusing. He had a job? Like, a normal job? Like normal people.

His mouth opened. Closed. A couple unintelligible sounds may have emerged. He shook his head. "What?"

The other Duo put his arms on his hips and tilted his head. And narrowed his eyes. He took in the looks on the faces of those in the room, the men Duo had defeated, the look on Howard's face, the scowl on Hilde's. The other Duo's eyes lingered on her for a bit longer than necessary. Duo wondered if there was some sort of silent conversation going on between them.

The other Duo came closer, looked him up and down, lifted an eyebrow. "You really tried, didn't you?"

It was _so weird_ to hear his own voice. And to look at a him that was similar – but not quite exactly like – his own. Like looking through a cracked mirror. He had more than just that little scar – he carried himself with the tiniest bit of a limp, as if he was fighting to not let it show. Well, obviously he wouldn't; why would he? It was a weakness.

It was so odd to see someone look like some big brother and know they was actually him.

Duo turned in a circle, very slowly, acting as if he was showing off his 'outfit' and instead taking the moment to take in the rest of the room. Stefano had lost all fight; his eyes were nearly round with wonder, looking from Duo to the other Duo and back again. There was less wonder and more confusion in the rest. Howard neatly sidestepped Hilde as she did that silent-communication thing with the other Duo some more. She barely bothered glaring at Duo now; apparently the other Duo was going to make everything all right again. And that was so much like the Hilde he'd known that once again, he found a tether for his hopes, and by the time he was facing himself once more, he'd steeled himself from the worst of his fears.

He grinned. "So? Whaddaya think? Pretty good, right?"

He wasn't bothering to argue with himself. Why would he? If the other Duo was half as observant as he himself was, he would have noticed the lack of surgical marks on his face and skin. The hair wasn't dyed or extended. There were no contacts in his eyes, and he'd been told several times (mostly by Quatre, and with a weird awe) that his eye color was fae-like. He had no voice implants. He had ratty clothes on, dirty, faded jeans with holes in it and a torn shirt – nowhere to hide anything that might have altering his appearance. The evidence of a fight showed that even if he did have something like that on him, it would have glitched or been jostled be the battle.

So it was unsurprising when his other self narrowed his eyes and looked at him again.

He gave the other him time. It would probably be weird, he thought, if both he and the other Duo were called Duo. And which of them would be the 'other Duo,' anyway? Probably him, and that rankled for some reason. He wasn't a freakin' alien. Well. Was he technically an alien? His head pounded, and he abandoned the thought.

Guh. His heart pounded so hard in his veins it _hurt_. And he was having the slightest trouble breathing. Only a tiny bit. Enough that he couldn't quite manage to get a deep breath. And his _head_. Make it stop.

There was a thought. Had he injured himself getting here? The pain had been on the sidelines since he'd arrived, and was only getting worse and worse. Maybe coming out to space had instigated it more? Or maybe it was some sort of side effect from _hopping dimensions_ like he had the slightest clue what he was doing.

He came back to himself when the other him – Duo One? Duo Two? Older Duo? – finally seemed to decide something. "How old are you?" he asked.

Duo laughed before he could help himself. "I dunno. How old are _you_?"

The other Duo actually shared his grin. But unlike Duo, his grin fell quickly, as if the scar made it hurt. But of course that wasn't the reason why. Duo wondered what had changed.

But when the other Duo shrugged, the gesture was as familiar as the old grin. "Around mid-twenties."

Duo nodded. "Around twenty for me."

The other Duo crossed his arms, sized Duo up. "You're scrawny. And short."

Hilde made a strange noise. Duo didn't bother to look at her. "How the fuck did you get tall?"

the other Duo just shrugged again. "Did G not feed you enough or something?"

It made Duo grin, even as his brain staggered under the weight of... of... something. Suddenly he found himself moving forward, ignoring the rest of the people in the room to look closer at the man like him. Taller, scarred, but there was something else a little different, too. Duo couldn't quite name it. But while he was looking for something different, it seemed the other Duo was looking for something, too. Only, while Duo kept a small grin on his face, the other Duo frowned openly.

Duo wanted, so very badly, to ask what had happened to him.

"Do you remember her?" the other Duo asked, suddenly serious in a way he hadn't been before. From somewhere behind and to Duo's left, Hilde made a sound that seemed almost to be a warning. Like from a mother when a child tries to leave a plate of vegetables untouched.

There was no doubt who the 'her' could be. Not to Duo. He touched his braid. "Of course I do."

"And the hair?"

"Expectations," Duo answered, because people always thought he was a girl at first glance, and then they thought he was a pansy, weak, because real men didn't have long-ass hair pulled into a braid. And then no one expected him to have lockpicks and weapons stored in said hair.

The other Duo nodded. "Where do you come from?"

"Gallifrey," he quipped, and they both shared a quick, identical grin. Duo hid a sharp wince. The other him narrowed his eyes. "Earth," he said, this time making vague gestures. Meaningless gestures, he'd been told. He rubbed his chest, waved an arm in the general direction of Earth, then in a larger sweep as if encompassing the universe. "Somewhere else. I didn't mean to. It was supposed to be a _time machine_. But the scientists never finished the thing, so I guess maybe it wasn't supposed to do anything. But it was the only thing I could think of to do. The only thing that might help."

The other him wrinkled his nose. Duo was alarmed by how correct Quatre and Trowa had been the one time they'd called the action from him "cute." He swore to break the habit. "Help what?"

So he told them. It was like talking through a firestorm, and he became more and more certain that he'd managed to screw himself over somehow, traveling in a freaking shower stall to another dimension. Maybe the mode of transportation caused ulcers, or cancer, or something, and the only reason the Doctor wasn't affected was because he was an alien. Or maybe because humans were making the whole stupid thing up.

He told them about the end of the rebellion – then had to back up and explain that Operation Meteor started in AC 195, not AC 200, just three years after Duo had been caught in G's shuttle, and the other Duo hummed a low, "so he didn't have time to fix you the regimen, huh? That explains your height," which made Duo want to punch him. Then he explained the problems, the gases being leaked from unmaintained weapons caches – "stupid," Howard remarked – and how it all fell apart when White Fang grabbed a couple of said weapons caches before Une and the Preventers, hardly formed, could secure every location.

The battles. The war. The death toll. Quatre. Trowa. Wufei. Heero. And as he mentioned each one, he saw a tensing, a confusion, in the other Duo that he couldn't understand. And finally he finished, and no one was holding their weapon on him anymore, and there was a strange, humming sort of silence while everyone blinked and tried very hard to not believe a word. Except for the other him, who seemed to believe. Because, he thought with a smile, there was no denying they were the same person. And he may run and hide...

He hitched in a couple of silent breaths and looked to the ground, wondering if he could get away with sitting – his feet were starting to hurt – and putting his head between his knees.

"And what happened to you?" the other Duo asked. The question made him look back up, focus again on the other him, the taller, more rugged him. Maybe he would look like that in a few more years. But then again, he hadn't been put on G's 'regiment.'

Which ticked him off like no one's business.

"Has White Fang given you guys any trouble?" he asked, ignoring the other Duo's question, tensing despite himself. Though the question was intended for everyone, it was the other Duo he watched. The taller him frowned more deeply, but said, "nothing. The leaders staged a final stand in the Libra, and they went down with the ship." Duo wanted to ask just what that meant, but he continued too quickly for him to ask. "The stragglers were idiots, and Oz had rounded up the Alliance's armaments before Operation M even began. Whatever remained, Treize cleaned up before White Fang or Romefeller could get their greedy little hands on them."

Treize? Duo tilted his head. "That's right. They were having their own little mini-war while we were attacking, weren't they? What came of all that on your end?"

But the other Duo waved the question away and glared at Stefano, who looked about ready to answer. He stepped closer, leaned down – completely unnecessary; the bastard had maybe two inches on him – and asked again, "and what happened to you?"

Was he that pushy? He didn't think so. He hoped not. "Nothing. Well, not over there. Maybe. I think. Which reminds me, what happened to your leg?"

The other him grimaced. See? Neither of them wanted to talk about their weaknesses in front of others. So stop pushing.

Except the other him pushed. "You think?"

"Did it start when you got here?" Howard asked, cutting into the glaring contest before it could even start. The man even walked up and stood between them. But while he just gave the taller him a warning glare, his gaze, when it turned on him, lingered for a while. "Like you're breaking apart?"

Duo hadn't thought of it that way, but when he let the words sink in, he thought they might have been perfect. His heart seemed to be trying to break through rib cage and make some sort of bid for freedom. His lungs, on the other hand, tried to be shrinking. His head seemed ready to burst and leak brain matter out his ears. And, he realized with bemusement, even though he'd hardly eaten anything, his stomach hadn't spoken one word of protest since the first time he'd nibbled on a sandwich. He'd thought it was because the thing was from a rest stop, but he should at least be getting hunger pangs or something.

"Uh," he said, realizing everyone was waiting for him to answer Howard. "Yeah, I guess."

Howard frowned. Almost outright scowled. "Duo?" Despite the fact that the man had no doubt in his eyes, he still tripped over the name. It made him smile.

"Yeah?"

The man nodded and bulled forward. "You traveled through dimensions, Duo. There are a lot of theories on that – on what could happen. You might cause an imbalance in our universe, make it start breaking apart." At Duo's wide-eyed, breathless look, Howard said, "there would be signs of it by now. Earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, fluctuations in the sun's radiation." Duo nearly collapsed in relief. "There are others, though," he said, his tone saying, _and one of them's happened_. "a merging of the two dimensions, the destruction of the old one. Irreversible futures. The destruction of the bodies found in the wrong dimension." Howard's gaze pierced him, and Duo knew the last was the one Howard believed was happening. His gut dropped to his toes. "The dimension, like a living thing, would reject the person who didn't belong, and they would die unless they returned to the dimension in which they belonged."

Duo staggered. The very idea of returning made him feel sick. He couldn't. There was nothing there. And even if he had the will, what were the chances he had the way? No.

So he was going to die.

The thought rattled around in his brain, making it ache all over, until he had to close his eyes as little spots blinked in his vision. Shit. "How long do I have?"

Howard waved him forward, and he started walking away, leading Duo somewhere. Hilde made another noise, but this time the taller him turned to her and motioned a quick 'stay' military signal, and punctuated it with a sharp glare. They actually had a battle of wills before Duo was ushered by his big-brother clone after Howard.

He glanced back as the Sweepers made way for them, all of them wide-eyed and gaping. "What's up with her? She was so much more... innocent when I knew her."

But his older brother clone actually doubled back and blinked down at him like he'd just asked who the alien in the room was. "Hilde? Innocent?"

"Uh... yes?"

Clone Brother seemed lost for words for a moment, first as if Duo had stunned him with a beam, then as if actually considering Duo's words. "You fought five years before us, didn't you?"

Even though that had already been established, Duo nodded. "Yeah. She'd just signed up for the military."

The other Duo hummed as if that explained everything. "The Hilde I knew had been in the military for several years by the time I met her."

Duo thought about that. Thought about meeting Hilde in the recruitment office, no naivete, no blind trust. "Was she suspicious of you at first?" At the other him's nod, grudging respect on the press of his lips and the squint at the corner of his eyes, Duo followed the line of reasoning to its conclusion. Hilde wouldn't have been a suck mobile suit pilot. She would have been able to hit the broad side of a barn. "Did you protect her?"

Big brother Duo gave him a 'you're kidding, right?' look, and Duo had to work through that piece to get to the 'got captured anyway' bit. Probably because, when Hilde came into her own, she actually became a pretty good shot. So Hilde had brought him in?

"Of course she did," other him said when he asked. "You think those other idiots would have gotten me otherwise?"

Point.

"Then how the hell did you get to the lunar base?" he asked.

"She'd become disillusioned," other Duo said as Howard turned them out of the room and into a short, fat hallway that ended abruptly at a door. Howard pulled out a set of keys. "We talked. She asked why I was fighting for the colonies when they'd thrown in their lot with Oz. I asked her if the colonists were smiling yet." A small smile flickered over his face. Duo remembered, vaguely, his own conversation with her. He thought he might have said something similar to her. "She helped me escape. Not that it helped – the doctors were reviving Deathscythe, so I stayed and waited for him to be born again."

Duo frowned again at the wording. Gods, his chest hurt.

Howard put a key into the slot beside the door, then placed his hand over the pad and said, "open the damn door. Myself plus two."

Duo snickered as the door opened and stepped through behind Howard and in front of the other Duo, forced to show his back. He shot a knowing glare at his other self as the door slid closed behind them.

"All right, stop babbling," Howard said the instant the door closed. The old man waved the other Duo away, and the taller him huffed and plopped down in a chair in front of a huge wooden desk – extravagance made to impress anyone who made it into Howard's inner sanctum. He wondered how often it was a Sweeper initiate, a Sweeper vet, or even a business associate. Behind him were several cases containing who only knew what, all locked up in case the gravity was lost. A computer sat on lockdown on the desk. "Hey." Howard snapped his fingers in front of Duo's face, and Duo focused once more. Howard gave him another assessing dressing down, and Duo feared the loss of concentration could get to be a thing before he died. Somehow, the idea of losing his mind was far more terrifying than his body slowly failing. "You asked how long you have."

Oh, yeah. More of that. He nodded. "Yeah." He pulled his braid around and fiddled with it. He stopped when the other him gave him a knowing look. "So what's the prognosis, doc?"

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Five days, six some hours. I don't know the exact time; I can't be sure it's the same as it was in my dimension, and every piece of electronic was destroyed in the room I arrived in, so I didn't see the time for a while. I still have Heero's old laptop, though I haven't been able to save anything. Maybe you and your fancy pants crew could rig something up. I didn't try to pull the best equipment out."

Howard seemed to let most of Duo's information blow right past him, but the old man always looked like he wasn't paying attention when he was mentally filing things behind that crazy hair. "And the pain?"

"Getting worse," Duo said, confirming something they all knew. "It was just a minor ache when I first arrived, but now it's a consistent pounding." He rubbed his chest again. "About a .5 at first, probably a four to five now." He smiled. "So maybe another week?"

Howard didn't say a word, but there was no mistaking the frown, the steady gaze, the firm, tense lines of the tendons on the back of his hands.

So little time. But longer than he'd had in his dimension. He could work with that.

He turned to his other self with a big grin, mustering it up from the darkest depths within him. The other him didn't seem to fall for it, even as Howard relaxed slightly. "You know what this means, right?"

The other him let him get away with the false cheer and cocked his head. "And what does it mean?"

"You have to help me prank Wufei."

The other him's eyebrows lowered. "You mentioned him before. Who are you talking about?"


	2. Cracks and Crevices

Duo sucked in a sharp breath. There was no way that could mean what he thought it meant. "You mean someone else piloted Shenlong? How? That was supposed to be Wufei's! I mean, yeah, the guy never really talks – talked," he winced, hurt all over again by the loss, and of course the pain in his chest flared in that instant, "about himself, but even I was able to glean the 'clan rite' thing after just a few sittings with the guy. There's no way someone else should have piloted that Gundam."

The other Duo just watched him with a strange expression on his face. Finally, he said, "you mean you knew the other pilots?"

The wind was knocked right out of Duo. He found himself stumbling. Almost blindly, he flailed until he could grab the other chair and sit in it. He didn't look at his other self.

He hadn't gotten to know the other pilots? How? Why the fuck not? "You mean..." He carefully switched. "Quatre? Trowa? H...Heero?"

The other him just shook his head. "Who, who, and..." The other him narrowed his eyes, apparently having picked up on Duo's hesitation, " _who?_ "

The very question made him quail inside.

He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't. There was no way he'd come this far, this long, suffered all this, ended up in another dimension where things were peaceful and he had a regular job and White Fang had been taken care of, only to find that his brother-in-arms, his comrades, his friends, the man he loved, didn't even know who he was, or he them. "How?" he asked, his mind spinning, reeling, the pain overwhelming now that the comfort of his pack, of his family, had been stripped from him all over again.

"Why would we know each other? We were never meant to meet, never given the same missions. We all worked in separate parts of the earth, kept distant from one another. We had our own quadrants in space. Like a well-oiled machine, or a finely-tuned clock. Why? Did you all just fly around like idiots all over the place in your home?"

 _Your home_. It wasn't the way Duo thought of it. Not anymore. "Did you seriously not work with any of them? What about when Zechs attacked the earth with the Libra?"

The other Duo waved his hand dismissively, and Duo narrowed his eyes. He knew that technique – he focused on the other Duo's eyes, and saw in them the faintest echo of what he himself felt – a loss of pack, of brotherhood. But it was slight, while Duo's was gaping. Duo figured this other him had the Sweepers, and that had given him what he'd needed. For Duo, that hole had been filled with his friends.

Who, he realized with renewed pain, wouldn't be his friends anymore, but someone else entirely. Like Hilde.

Gods. He rubbed his hands over his face and ignored, for the moment, the horrible pounding in his chest and head. He had to believe that there was still something, something deep and bright, in those people he remembered from his world. If Hilde could still be that woman who took her convictions and strapped them to her chest like badges, then maybe the rest could have something in them he recognized. Maybe they could become friends again. Not friends like he remembered. Nothing, he was realizing, could take their places. Not even themselves, altered by time and circumstance. But these people, they were still the people he'd come to love. There was still a part of them in there. In time, Hilde might see him as more than some attempting usurper. And maybe...

He looked up and saw Howard and the other him exchanging glances – glances that had nothing to do with Duo's problem and everything to do with something else. "What?"

They both looked vaguely guilty for a second. Of course if was the other Duo who shook off the look first. "Actually, we could use your assistance, Mini Me."

Duo scowled fiercely. "Call me that again and you won't get it."

A smirk. The bastard. "Something has been happening here. In our dimension, I mean." Obviously. Duo gave the other him a look that was accepted with a small incline of his head. "We've heard whispers of something. Unrest."

"Are you trying to make it sound like some fantasy novel?" he asked.

"Would that make you more interested?" his counterpart asked.

"I dunno; do I get to be the badass assassin?"

"You're the wiseass sidekick. I'm the badass assassin."

Duo was about to remark on the wiseass companion's uncanny ability to die heroically, then stopped himself as the pain mounted within him once more. Well.

It seemed he wasn't the only one who came to that odd and abrupt conclusion, because the other him said, rather swiftly, "we're fairly positive it's none of the military groups, but instead political. But we haven't been able to really see much of it. Police forces haven't found much, but politics since the end of the war have fallen primarily on the Sanc kingdom, and the police there are... limited."

Duo frowned. "Huh? Just ask Preventers. They'll take care of it. They have a bigger hand in politics than you, unless you had a serious life-change overhaul."

He was given a set of disbelieving stares for his trouble. "Leave it up to Une and Noin, the lovers of the two extremists?" the other Duo asked, like maybe Duo had actually advised he jump in a pool of underfed sharks. "The ones who followed their men blindly into the end times? Those idiots? They cobbled together Preventers, yes, but it's apparent they feed Sanc the intel they want the country to learn, and don't actively try to promote peace beyond what they personally desire. How many times has that Une woman tried to get the Peacecraft girl to accept her presence in confidential meetings? And gee, Noin, married to Zechs, who happens to be the little girl's brother. All that's a good match all around, wouldn't you say?"

Duo's eyes widened. "You mean you don't actually know any of these people?"

The other Duo snorted. "Why would I?"

His chest nearly folded into itself at that. He couldn't believe it. "You have no idea who they are? You never worked with them?" He turned to Howard. "Even you? Then what about the Peacemillion?"

"What about it?" the other Duo asked, and Duo threw his hands in the air.

"Are you guys fuckin' stupid?"

The other Duo scowled. Duo belatedly remembered that that particular insult was a pet peeve of his. "Right. Well, screw this. If something's going on, then they'll know about it. Une's not an idiot. So you guys stay here and plan for shit all along, and I'll go out and get the help we need." He hesitated. He knew no one here would be the exact same as he'd known them before. It was a painful admission, one that twisted his stomach until he thought he might throw up. (Or maybe that was the dimension breaking his body down; at this point, who knew?) Could he handle seeing a different Quatre than the one he'd known? A different Wufei? Trowa? _Heero_? His breath came suddenly in short gasps as he thought about looking at Heero's face and seeing no recognition in those features. He thought he might be having a panic attack.

Duo Maxwell _did not_ have panic attacks.

Okay. Okay, okay, fuck freaking out about something that needed to be done. Needed, because fuck whatever issue they had going on in this weird dimension where no one bothered to get to know anyone else, Duo was _dying_. And if he was dying, by shinigami, he was no going to do it lying around with nothing but this giant city of Sweepers and some smartass taller version of himself to keep him company.

The other him snorted. "You think those people can be reasoned with? I didn't know I could be that gullible."

Duo's mouth opened before he could even input the message in his brain to shut up. "I didn't know I could be so stupid. It's definitely a letdown." A weird staring contest began. It quickly became a point of pride not to look away.

And then his other self said, "so you think you're smarter? You, from a world where, what? Everything went to hell? I thought you said everyone died. Did that include the other pilots? Une, Noin? But we're the ones who are stupid."

Duo knew, in his head, that the other Duo probably had the exact same issue with words defeating brain that he did. Still, he couldn't help the feeling of having been slapped. It wasn't gratifying at all to see the instant regret in his other self's eyes, or to see the heated glare that barely preceded the hard slap Howard gave to the other him's head.

He snarled. He clenched his hands into fists. And before he could say something he might regret, he stomped the fuck out of the room.

He did not, in any way, shape, or form, have any sort of stinging sensation in his eyes. And if he did, it was just more of the dimension's bullshit shenanigans messing with his system.

He made it through the inner sanctum, in which every single person gave him a hard look before stepping out of his way, obviously trying to see which Duo he was before realizing he wasn't _their_ Duo, and instead of joking with him or asking him questions, each and every one of them let him pass. Even Stefano, with his head still shoved somewhere up his ass, and Yoshua, his gaze darkly assessing, as if the idiot stood a chance against Duo – especially while he was in a mood.

That knowledge, potentially gleaned from interacting with the other Duo, might have been what stilled him. Duo didn't rightly care.

His shuttle was still in port, probably, unless the Sweepers had gotten in to a new and odd habit of auto-launching shuttles that were guilty of carrying unknown persons onto the Sweepers' home base. He got into that multimedia crowd of shippers and shuttlers and whatever else people did in this dimension with their damn ships and nearly shoved a man who thought it would be a good idea to bother Duo about directions, as if Duo had any clue where dock 42's animal cargo had been taken for clean-up, and finally made it back to his shuttle. Everything in him hurt.

It was the dimension sickness, or whatever it could be called. Did Duo have dibs on naming it? Was he the first to deal with it, or were there other people inadvertently – or advertently? – shifting through dimensions? If he got to name it, he should probably find something better than 'dimension sickness.' Shinigami's Grasp. Hm. He liked that one. So it was because of Shinigami's Grasp that he felt like he was being torn apart, and not because he'd had his losses shoved in his face like the people he'd loved had been nothing but trash.

It hurt, and it was a deep, dark pain, and it made him want to murder someone. Preferably himself. His other self. Whatever.

His shuttle was one of those boring civilian dime-a-dozen white things, because he'd felt kind've bad about stealing the entire shuttle when the earth was so ridiculously peaceful – the roads were all well-maintained, for crying out loud – but now he wished he'd taken something big and ostentatious and preferably a warship, if they had any of those left after the war, which they probably didn't, since Relena had demanded everyone get rid of their weapons, which had only made White Fang stronger, since they'd been the only ones to ignore her orders...

Duo clenched his eyes shut and ordered himself not to think about it, not to feel, not to worry about it, because it would all be over pretty soon, anyway, and all he needed to do was get out there and make new old friends...

He shivered. No. He would get the information he could glean from Une and Noin and Sally, if they were all working together in Preventers, and he would bring the information back to the other Duo, and his job would be done. Right? Right? He didn't have to seek out people just because he could, just because he missed their faces...

He was sitting in his shuttle before he even realized he was taking a damn side trip. He set his course, then thought it over and turned on a couple news feeds, flicking blindly through them until he saw what he needed.

He heard movement behind him, someone entering his ship without the authority to do so, and he turned around. He didn't have a weapon, and his chest felt like it was being pressed down on by a hundred rocks, but he could still kick some idiot's ass–

It was the other him. Duo stood in an instant, his hand moving to his hip with no order to do so from his brain.

The other him ducked his head down. Fiddled with his braid. The old move made Duo blink. "I'm sorry," the other Duo said finally, and looked up, his jaw tight, as Duo's always was when he had to admit to having been wrong. "I shouldn't have said that. They were your friends, right?"

"Brothers," Duo heard himself say, and winced again. This time, the other him winced with him.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and this time, there was emotion behind it. Duo recognized it. How could he not? The same yearning, the same need to belong that he'd had ever since the dissolving of his old rat pack, had been inside him. Until he'd found his new nest. And then that, too, had been taken away.

"I have to find them." Once again, he thought with a grimace, his stupid mouth had made its own decisions. But it was too late now, and he rolled with it. "I'll go to Preventers," he said. "Even if they're different, I have to try. It couldn't hurt, right? And I promise I'll do it." The other him nodded, shrugged. Duo hadn't needed to promise, he realized; the other him knew he didn't lie. "But I have to find them first. At least Quatre. At least him."

The other him opened his mouth as if to ask a question, but for once, he seemed to think better of it. Duo wondered if he would gain that control later on in life. He could only be thankful for it; he had no doubt the other him would have asked why Quatre and not the one whose name Duo had tripped over earlier. "Take my ship," the other Duo said instead. "Come with me in my ship," he amended in the same breath. It made Duo smirk. "I want to meet these people you call brothers."

The yearning was there again, tamped down a bit better. Duo almost felt jealous, angry. These other pilots would be this Duo's friends more than his, simply because they all belonged in this dimension. Even if Duo wasn't a ticking time bomb of imminent death, he still wouldn't have as much of a claim on them. But then he was merely tired, and content, and he nodded. He would meet them, he would have moments with those who had once been family, or like family, and he would die.

It was more than he'd had before – not the death, that had been pretty much guaranteed no matter what – but the chance for something a little more than dying in some haunted subway station with nothing but Heero's laptop for company.

It was better. It worked. It was enough.

Duo nodded. What else could he do? Besides. He was ridiculously curious. The ship was named Death's Hand, if he recalled correctly, and he just _had_ to find out what it looked like.

He wasn't even remotely surprised by the thick coat of black seamed into the hull. It probably took a good chunk of money to keep it that dark when it kept going in and out of the atmosphere, and he was positive the other him thought it a sound investment. Not just because of the cool factor – because, hello? Black! – but because it kept his ship mostly invisible in the darkness of space. It had come in handy more than once with Deathscythe, and if Duo was doing a whole bunch of clandestine research on whoever these political movers and shakers were, it would have come in handy at least once by now.

The ship opened its hutch, and both Duos climbed aboard. The one went straight to the cockpit, most likely going to get the thing started before Duo could scamper off and avoid the hell out of him – running and hiding, and Duo supposed it was only right that the other him knew damn well how liable he was to become a ghost the first opportunity he got.

The inside of the ship was open, nearly empty, with little more than a bolted-down bunker to hold whatever miscellaneous cargo needed to be stored in explosion-proof metal. But it was the walls that made Duo's eyes widen.

They weren't painted; Duo had never been one to learn to paint, and the other him didn't even know Trowa or Wufei, both of whom had a knack for colors and shapes. But apparently the new technology gave a person the ability to turn pictures into wall paint, or something, because a giant, life-sized picture of Duo with the Sweepers was blown up on the side of the cargo hold. Duo stared, jaw flopping open, at the very idea of it. He recognized Yoshua, standing just a couple of men over from Howard, and there was the guy who'd been painting the dog, back in the back, grinning cockily. More likely than not, whatever he'd been smiling about had given the group some trouble shortly after the picture had been taken.

But what really caught him interest was himself – the other him – smack dab in the middle in the front, one arm slung over Hilde, the other resting on Howard's shoulder, beaming the cameraman a wide grin and giving the thing a peace sign from the hand by Howard's arm. Howard had a long-suffering, secretly pleased smile. Hilde was looking up at the other him with that awed look she'd once given Duo himself, and finally he could see where the Hilde he'd known had once been.

And yet! Even more interesting – the rest of the Sweepers crowded around them, a couple in the middle of rolling their eyes or laughing. Hilde had on arm around him, that _look_ on her face, and both of them – Hilde and the other Duo – were leaning toward one another slightly, even though the other him had that arm on Howard. And Howard seemed to be fighting back a smile.

It was like family. Only, when Duo squinted at it a little bit more, he thought he could see something different in the stances of Hilde and him. Something that his Hilde and himself would have nearly retched over.

There was more than sibling affection going on in there.

"See anything you like?" the other him called, and he sent the man a dirty glare. It wasn't his fault the other him didn't know just _who_ it was that Duo liked. And it wasn't the other him's fault that Duo was seeing love as something wavy, almost maybe distorted. He felt like he was losing Heero all over again. This dimension's Hilde was _his_ Hilde, and she never would be. She had served in the military for years, while the Hilde he'd known had gotten out. Escaped. He didn't know her any more than she knew him.

What did that say for the other Gundam pilots? Who would he meet? Like seeing someone wearing his friends' bodies as meatsuits, he wasn't going to know a single one of them. Would Quatre still be Quatre? Duo couldn't imagine him any other way. Would Trowa be anything like himself? Duo remembered Trowa losing his memory, and only joining up with them against because of Quatre – Quatre, whom he presumably didn't even meet in this dimension. What did that mean? Would Trowa have even fought in the end? And Wufei? Had he ever gotten the stick out of his ass? Would he have even been like that from the start?

And Heero. God of Death himself, would Heero even be Heero any more?

He clutched his chest as the fire within him raged. His breathing stuttered for a second. Two seconds. Five. He could almost feel a sort of vibration under his skin, and finally he could acknowledge that, yes, he was literally being pulled apart. His pulse pounded in his temples.

Heero wouldn't be Heero. He would be someone Duo wouldn't recognize, and the thought of seeing that other someone wearing Heero's skin hurt in ways he couldn't even comprehend. Like he'd become a stranger to himself. Like the world he stood in, this ridiculously peaceful world, could just go to hell, too; he wouldn't be losing anything.

But he had a _chance_. Not a chance to rekindle an old flame or reunite with old friends, but a chance to... to... he didn't even know. He felt lost. Find peace? Die with dignity? Die, at least, with maybe someone beside him. Such a pathetic desire, but it was all he had. If he could keep himself from dying alone... it had always been his greatest fear. Just one person standing over him would be enough. And hey, while he died, he could help solve whatever political disaster was in the works. Maybe. A little bit. If nothing else, he could introduce the other him to the men Duo had known. Maybe they wouldn't be able to be friends. Maybe their differences were too great now. But it would be better to try.

He gulped in a deep breath when he could. He let his hand fall back down to his side.

The other him, when he turned to look, was looking at him as if he understood. It made Duo want to punch something.

"Duo!"

Duo flinched, even as he turned. The other him looked, too, as Hilde bounded aboard, but the only one she threw a glare to – possibly for _daring_ to turn at the sound of his name – was him. Then she ignored him. He felt like another picture on a wall. "Duo, where are you going?"

"I'm going with him," the other him said, giving Duo an authority he didn't actually have on this ship. Why did the action give Duo a warm fuzzy? Was it weird to get a warm fuzzy from oneself? "We're going to Preventers. He's right. I never even gave them the chance."

She stomped on-board. Each step echoed all up and down the hold. "You can't be serious. With this guy? Just because he looks like you, you think he's telling the truth?"

"Hilde," the other Duo said, and seriously, they needed different names, "I recognize him. He's a little different than me, yeah, but not enough for me to not tell he's _me_. You would recognize yourself, too. No matter what."

Duo wasn't sure of that; except for very brief flashes of recognition, the woman in front of him hardly reminded him of his Hilde in the slightest.

"It's difficult to explain," the other him went on. "But every time I look in his eyes, I see it. Me. Him. We're shadows of each other."

Hilde seemed to chew on that like one might used tobacco. She glared against at Duo, and fuck if he could stop himself from waggling his fingers at her. He even plastered on a grin, because it was an automatic thing, a shield that popped up before he could even think about it. It made her nearly double back. It made her glare turn into a snarl.

The other Duo sighed.

Duo didn't have time – or even the inclination, really – at the moment to try to win her over. It was too painful to contemplate, and he didn't appreciate the gnawing sense of loss that got compounded every moment he looked at this other-Hilde's face. He hurried from the hold, shifting around the other him, who immediately gave way, thank fuck, and quick-walked his way through the rest of the ship.

It wasn't the big a deal inside; more black on the walls, a couple of other pictures, most of which were scattered within the galley. Duo passed them all, knowing they were of people and lives that had nothing to do with him. But then Duo stopped by one, just before the ship opened in the front for the cockpit, and stared. It was just the other Duo in this picture, no other people – well, no other humans. He touched the wall almost reverently. The wings were there, black as sin. It was odd, though, because the other him had left him on, open and unprotected. The picture had to be of after the war. Probably right before they sent their friend into the sun.

Deathscythe was so beautiful. So regal. It was another loss, one Duo hadn't thought of in a long while. And it hurt. It shouldn't have. In the long one, it was the least of his losses.

The other him and Hilde didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry, despite Duo's need to _move_ , so he spent a good few minutes looking around. He wasn't surprised to see the cockpit had been installed similarly to the cockpit of Deathscythe; he wondered if the picture was an homage of some sort, or perhaps an altar, given up to his lost buddy. But he didn't know if either really fit, because the first picture he'd seen had been of people alive and well. The other Duo's rat pack, as it were. Maybe it was just another damn picture.

Perhaps he didn't know everything about himself, after all.

He plotted in the course he wanted to take, since he apparently had plenty of time to do so. When they still didn't show up – and when another attack of Shinigami's Grasp ended – he would have to work on the phrasing – he idled back toward the galley.

It, two bedrooms, and a bathroom were the only other rooms save for the cockpit and the hold, and Duo wondered if that was because the other him couldn't afford anything better or if it was all the space he needed. He bet the latter; if he hadn't had the money for it, he could have just stolen it. He wouldn't have had any qualms over it, especially if he stole from Une or Treize or Tubarov. He probably still had money from _those_ accounts in his own, accruing interest. But the tight space meant he would be spending some serious time holed up in the guest room – because come on, the other Duo and Hilde sleeping in the same room would just be common sense; the two of them obviously swung toward each other – and he would be adamant on avoiding her stares and the memories they brought.

The galley was actually pretty wide, and seemed somehow wider with the four pictures of people on each side. Another picture of the Sweepers, then a picture of a couple of people Duo didn't realize. A third picture of who Duo could only assume were more Sweepers; since he didn't recognize any of them, they were probably all new.

It was the fourth that made him literally take a step back, and his heart lodged itself like a lead ball in his stomach. He'd mistaken it for another picture; this one must have cost a fortune, because there was no way in five flaming hells the other him or anyone else in the Sweepers could manage that level of artistic talent. But a picture it absolutely could not be, and if he squinted and moved a bit closer, he could see the slight dips and swirls of paint on the wall.

A woman with bright, achingly beautiful blond hair stood beside a tall, balding older man. Both were wearing formal garments, which Duo had certainly never seen them in. But oh, they looked great in them. And Duo could almost see it; if they'd been alive, he would have showered them with gifts. Dresses for her, suits and ties for him. And both would have told him off for such unnecessary material possessions, and he would have told _them_ off for telling him what to do with his (technically not, but whatever) money. And the idea of having them in his ship, showing them his home, would have made him bubble with pride if it weren't for the aching pain of it. He wondered how the other him could stand to have Sister Helen and Father Maxwell beside him all the time. Then he wondered how the other him could go without.

He was found there by the two _extremely tardy_ other parties after just a couple more minutes, and Hilde at least had been told to not glare, or perhaps she'd simply run out of them, but in either case, Duo was glad. He wasn't sure he could have handled any more of her vitriol. She did, however, send waves of fury through some sort of aura that managed to make even the slight trek to the cockpit a nearly awkward affair.

Duo went to sit in the guest seats, opting out of the pilot or co-pilot seats. The other him made a slightly surprised noise, and Duo sent him another glare. It took all of a half-second for the other him to realize Duo was only keeping out of the front seats because he knew damn well Hilde wouldn't welcome him in it.

It took him until he'd safely harnessed himself to realize he wasn't the least bit surprised himself to find Hilde coming with them. It was something she would do. She considered Duo to be a danger, and she would never send those she cared about into anger alone. That part of her had been something Duo had expected, even from this drastically different Hilde. It was weird to realize that, not only had he expected something from someone he technically didn't know, but that said prediction had ultimately been correct. It left him confused and floundering again.

The other him sat down, took one look at the coordinates Duo put in, and sighed. "Messing with my machine," he said. Hilde turned quickly to the other him, then glared hotly behind her as she took the co-pilot's seat.

"Your password was obvious," Duo said. He couldn't infuse the right amount of give-a-damn into his voice, no matter how hard he tried. The other him seemed to catch on, because he just just shrugged.

"Maybe to you."

Duo didn't bother arguing that, or even joking about it, because he couldn't think. So the other him started a course line based on the new trajectory. Duo thought maybe the red tape would make it take a while; he'd been ready to just go without waiting for the okay, like he had back on earth, because anyone who didn't know how to manually switch trajectories to avoid a head-on collision _in space_ didn't deserve to be sitting in the fucking cockpit, but in less than a few minutes, they received a tinny message of a woman's voice saying, "you're clear to launch." And they did.

Hilde was stewing silently in her seat for the flight out, and when they hit outside the colony and it was safe to move about, she stayed sitting where he was, glaring out the front sensor 'windows', and Duo just couldn't be bothered to deal with her overprotective ass. She wanted to treat him like some sort of fugitive? Fine. Duo didn't have the wherewithal to try to reason with her. Stubbornness, apparently, was a permanent personality quirk of hers.

He unbuckled himself from his harness and stood. The other him had left gravity on, even though normally Duo enjoyed the feeling of zero-g; he must have noticed Duo wouldn't have the patience for the floating feeling while he was so damn depressed. It was weird. Normally, he would think he'd just gotten lucky and the other Duo didn't want to deal with zero-g at the moment, either. But it was apparent there was something more to it; the other him was a bit tense, and kept sneaking him little looks. It had definitely been done on purpose, and if Hilde wasn't there, he would have thanked the other him. As it was, he just asked, "which room is mine?"

"Neither. None of it," Hilde snapped before the other Duo could do more than open his mouth, and both of them gave her a slightly-irritated, one hundred percent exasperated look. She actually turned enough to see both their expressions, and Duo saw her make that little double-take motion again.

"What she means," the other him said, "is that I only have the two rooms. It'll be awkward as hell, but we'll need to share."

Duo blinked. Slowly. He looked from the other him to Hilde and slowly, very slowly, back. Huh. "Okay," he said, also slowly, and gave the other him a _look_. He nearly laughed when the other him gave him a startled look that formed very quickly into a warning glare, those brows pulling low. Duo just shook his head.

"Duo," Hilde said as Duo left, and this time he kept himself from turning, knowing just by the earnest sound of her voice that she couldn't possibly be talking to him, "you can't be serious! You can't stay alone with that man in your room! What if something happened?"

Duo left before he had to listen to any more.

He wondered, as he made his way to the room closest to the cockpit, where all of his enthusiasm had gone. He'd been excited. The Sweepers were still alive. Hilde was still alive. The other Gundam pilots were still alive. It was all everything that he had wished for. And yeah, they weren't _his_ Sweepers or Hilde or Gundam pilots, but... but...

There wasn't really a but to that, was there? There wasn't anything more that could be said.

He may become friends with them again, over time. Well, over whatever time he had left. He might have more than just an older, more-scarred version of himself to watch over his last moments. He might even be able to make a new home for himself. It wouldn't change his losses.

He opened the door, keying in the first thing that came to mind, and was wholly unsurprised when the door opened silently without further ado. It closed behind him, and he leaned heavily against it.

It truly was like losing everything all over again. He was glad, viciously glad, that he'd been wearing black clothes, and he decided he would have to buy more, all black, all the way up to his death. There weren't many old church customs he'd been able to adopt, but the idea of wearing black for mourning – he'd been able to get behind that all the way.

Just look at the other him and Hilde. While he himself had never felt anything but brotherly affection for the woman, the other him clearly had a case of the whipped lover in him. They'd sat in the damn pilot and co-pilot's seats and leaned slightly toward one another, for crying out loud. Even with the stupid harnesses. It was a love he'd never felt.

If their relationship could be altered so much in those five years, then what about the other relationships? How would Quatre react to Duo now? Would he still be the little bother Duo had never had? Or Trowa? Would he be the older brother Duo had ended up looking up to despite himself? Or Wufei, the older, elitist brother who had taken it upon himself to 'babysit' the recalcitrant Duo?

Or, he thought with heavy dread, what about Heero?

He wouldn't be able to stand a Heero who didn't recognize Duo as, if nothing else, his very first, very best friend. What if Heero didn't even make it to that? What if he looked at Duo the way he had when they'd first met, as nothing more than an obstacle? What if that was as close as they would ever get, because five years had been too damn long?

He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't think about it. If he did, he just might break. And he needed to keep going. He wasn't dead yet.

Right. He would meet with Quatre. Of any of them, Quatre had the highest chance of being open-minded and good. Quatre had been the one to pull Duo in, after all. He'd been far more reticent after the whole Heero debacle (he had _not_ been turned on by Heero's blatant lack of give-a-damn, no, sirree), but Quatre had opened his arms without a second thought. It had been like meeting another rat on the streets. Despite Quatre being so high-brow entire colonies had been built in his family name, he had been just like Duo's old gang. If anyone would help him out, befriend him, give him some sort of home here, it would be his little brother.

* * *

The days in the ship passed hellishly slowly. It wasn't the ship's fault or the other Duo's fault. It was, one hundred percent, totally and completely Hilde's fault. And maybe a tiny bit of his own, because if she wanted to be a petulant bitch, then he would be a smartass dick.

The other him was actually the one to retreat to his room the most; apparently Duo bickering was giving him a permanent headache. Duo could relate.

It was day four when Hilde finally realized she couldn't win. The victory went something like this:

"You think you can fool everyone, don't you? You think you can fill Duo's shoes? You're nothing like him. And you never will be."

"No shit? That would be because I, in five less years than your dear wuvvle-bunny, have experienced even more shit than he has. You should be groveling at my feel for not being him. Or maybe kissing me? Or maybe that's just something that should stay between you two."

Deep, horribly deep flush that led to Duo cackling somewhat maniacally. "You have no idea what you're talking about!" Standard Hilde response, one in a million that Duo had been forced to listen to while he'd been messing with the little harpy. "And you have no idea what he's been through."

"I don't know what was altered during the war, sure. But before that? I could list it all out in minute detail, honey. Has he done that with you?"

Her jaw worked. No, then. Duo wasn't surprised; it wasn't something he talked about with anyone. Even his old Heero hadn't known it all. "You aren't him."

The stubborn redundancy of the thoroughly defeated. "He seems pretty damn sure I am. Where does all that confidence come from? Why doesn't he call me out on my bullshit? It's almost like he, who knows himself better than anyone else could, recognizes himself when he sees him. Me. It." Momentarily lost on wording, he forged ahead nonetheless. "So how come you keep pitting this fire under me, huh? I'm not trying to be a third wheel. That would be awkward, fucking myself. Masturbation alone with exhibitionism? Voyeurism? Are there even words for that?"

Hilde, again, flushed furiously. Some things, at least, hadn't changed. Sex was fine to talk about, so long as it had nothing to do with her. Then she turned into a shy girl next door. Ridiculously cute. Like a stuffed animal. Or a gerbil. "That's not–"

"So what? You're jelly over the fact that there's someone your boy-toy explicitly trusts? Because I gotta say, not trusting yourself is unhealthy. And weird. And as I said, I want nothing to do with either him or you." Duo waved his hand up and down her. "I swing both ways, sure, but I've never swung in your direction before, even when you weren't imitating Medea."

Hilde seemed momentarily flabbergasted; it had been the first time Duo had mentioned another her. She didn't seem to take it well. "I'm not talking about that! I don't care about your stupid sexual interests, you pervert."

Duo raised one eyebrow a slowly as possible. Somehow, the action derailed her attempt to continue. Possibly because the last few times he'd done it, his sarcasm had left her flushing and fuming and speechless. Her silence might have been a Pavlovian response. "No, you're trying to say you know better than Duo what he's like, what he knows, what I am (as if you know diddly about me, either), and what he should think. Funnily enough, after listening to your horseshit for nearly a week now, he still doesn't think you're right."

She sat and fumed while he once again tried to ignore the fact that he'd just used his own name to describe someone other than him who was, in fact, another him. If he thought about it, his brain might explode. So he never really thought about it. "Which is weird, you know? So many days to talk to me while we're in that room alone, doing _god knows what_ ," he said, just to piss her off and make her jaw drop, "and not once has he expressed the slightest doubt that I'm not another version of him."

"He hasn't argued with me, either," she said, her voice low, nearly resonating that tone of petulance.

He'd laughed. "Honey, that's because he wants to get in your pants."

And voila. Victory. He'd chugged a juice drop in celebration while she ran off to her room to, he didn't know, maybe stab some voodoo dolls or something. Military Hilde was a witch.

But she was still hilarious to poke fun at.

The other him surfaced like a cautious doe from his own room shortly after that, looking back and forth like he expected Hilde to pounce out like a viper and strike. The mental analogy made Duo grin; Hilde would probably do that, too. And this Hilde, Military Hilde, was so much like a viper it made Duo want to cringe. It certainly wasn't the Hilde he'd known. Thankfully, he was starting to think of her as Hilde's older sister who happened to have the same name. It was much easier that way.

"Work things out yet?" the other him asked, moving forward to grab his own juice. Duo couldn't help but notice that the other him had picked out the exact same drink as him.

"Yeah, I think we might have." Duo used his drop to hide his grin.

"What did you do."

It was not phrased like a question, so Duo didn't bother answering. "How far away are we?"

"Just another eight hours," the other him sighed. "You didn't mentally scar her or anything, did you?"

"Don't worry, she'll get over it," he said, and the other him just sighed again. It was weird. Everything was weird now. He leaned back in the chair he sat in, the one looking out toward the entrance to the galley, because if anyone was liable to get sniped on this ship, it was him. The other Duo leaned back against the wall of the galley, just behind and to the right of Duo. It was even weirder how the man's proximity behind him didn't bother him. "Why haven't you started dating her?"

The other him made choking noises. Duo grinned.

"What?" Then, "no, shut up. It's not like that." Duo looked over his shoulder. "Yet," the other him amended, and damned if his face didn't flare up, either. "Besides, shouldn't I be in love with your Heero?"

Duo hated how a replica of the other Duo's blush bloomed over his own cheeks. And he hated how he could see, in his peripheral vision, the exact smirk he'd just been sporting mirrored on the other Duo's face. "I don't think so. Or maybe? Possibly? I didn't think of Hilde like that, not once." There was a surprised noise behind him. "She was like my sister." The conversation flowed easily now; the first few nights alone in their room had been pure torture, full of stilted little, "so did you?"s and "did this happen?"s. But now it was like they had managed to get past the stupid questions and were nearly comfortable with each other. It was, after all, almost like speaking with oneself. "It was a completely different kind of love. Thank goodness." Duo quirked the other him a grin. "The idea of loving her? Bleck."

The other Duo didn't seem to know whether to be insulted or relieved. He decided to just drink his juice.

"When did it start, anyway?" he asked. "I mean, was it love at first sight? When I met her, she was so stupid and optimistic I thought her a complete sucker. She surprised me by having the slightest – and I mean _slightest_ – modicum of skill." Duo squeeze his thumb and finger together to show just how little skill she had. "Was she actually a good fighter when you met her? Because it was painful with me. Painful. I actually had to save her life on the battlefield."

The other Duo snorted, and there was a sense of wonder when he did. "No. My Hilde knew how to fight. She was the only one who went after me who did."

His Hilde. The two of them had apparently been thinking of it all the same way. Well, of course they had. "So why are you and I sharing a room – thanks for the zero-g on that, because there was _no way_ I was sleeping with myself in the same bed – and not you and her? You've known each other for years now."

Another blush. Good god, had he blushed like that around Heero? He had twin, conflicting bursts of embarrassment and pain. Maybe it was best if he didn't ask himself such questions. "It's not like that. Not for her. You've seen her. She has a hero complex for me."

Duo opened his mouth, about to make a very smartass remark. His other self glared at the dirty joke before it could even be said. Duo grinned. "You're an idiot. Which is painful, because you're a version of me. Even Heero and I didn't waste _this_ much time. That's amazing." His other self was not amused. Duo watched him shift from his bad foot to his good one and waved at the chair. "Dude, if we're gonna have a conversation, sit the fuck down. You're acting like we're gonna get attacked, and it's making me edgy."

The other Duo's gaze slid to the door, and Duo realized he was almost _expecting_ to be attacked – by Hilde. It made Duo tense. Apparently his tension was all that was needed for the other him to finally sit the hell down, though, so Duo counted it as a win. And he wasn't above using the other him as a shield, either. "As long as she thinks of me as Superman, she isn't going to love me."

"Superman?" Duo said with a snort. "More like Batman," he said, and heard the words echoed back at him at the same time. They both shared a grin.

Of course, Hilde walked in then. Her look was murderous. "The two of you – Duo, how..." She glared at Duo, apparently still unwilling to take her anger out on the other him. He rolled his eyes. Maybe the other him had a point. How many times had Heero and him gotten into a fight? And what did it say that he and Heero had a more stable relationship than these two – and the stability was shown through their temper tantrums?

But then the pain reared up again, and he thought, once again, that he shouldn't bring Heero up. Not even in his own thoughts. Especially not in his own thoughts.

He came out of himself in time to see that squinty-eyed empathy thing going on from the other him and a half-pissed, half-blank-eyed look from Hilde. He cleared his throat and gave her his best sardonic grin. "Come out to play some more? I do so love our little chats." He slid a look over to the other him before sliding it right back to her. She flushed. Apparently, the last thing she wanted was another conversation about her love interest while standing in front of her love interest. Oh ho ho, then. "Maybe some sport on how knowledgeable you are? Or how fake I am? Ooh! Let's go back to that one where you said my braid was hair extensions! That one was fun."

The other him snorted despite himself. He tried to cover it up with his juice, but it was too late.

Hilde's glare was coming back. Good; he didn't want someone who couldn't stand him knowing what he'd lost. "How about we discuss just how you managed to get here?"

Duo shrugged. "Shower stall. Laptop. Blueprints. Bam! Second dimension. Very woo-woo, wonky space-time shit. And the tech here? Weird. You have no idea. Well, maybe you do. But spray-painting pictures onto walls? _Weird._ Seriously."

"You couldn't do that in your dimension?" Hilde said.

"I appreciate the attempt at the sarcasm tone, but you might need to work on it a little bit," Duo said, pointing his juice drop at her. "But don't give up on your delusions just yet. I think I would genuinely freak out if you suddenly realized you've been stupid this whole time."

"You're a bastard," Hilde said. "You can't be him."

"You're a dim-witted, obnoxious cow of a woman who wouldn't recognize a _certain someone's alternative self_ if he, say, walked straight up to you and waved." He waggled his eyebrows and looked over at the other him, deliberately sly. She turned purple, actually purple. Duo laughed. "Trust me, if I didn't know any better, I would think I'd just lost my mind or something. But even I can't make Hilde into something like you. She'd still be her uber-optimistic self, all, 'I'm fighting for the colonies!' and 'you should sign up before you badmouth Oz!'"

This time, the other him actually snorted out some of his drink. "No," he said, nearly choking, partly on laughter and partly on juice. "She didn't!"

"She did! Walked right up to me while I was talking smack at the tv. Just like that! She gave me the damn application and everything. My god, it's never been so easy to infiltrate a group before or since."

The other him burst out laughing. Hilde looked like she just might combust. Duo couldn't tell anymore if it was fury, humiliation, or some horrible love-child of the two.

"You should have seen her face! She was like a kid on Christmas morning! I guess; wouldn't know about that. But she was so _earnest_ , all 'I'm gonna save him from his misconceptions!' Oh, and she _could not_ aim. It was sad. I literally didn't know if I should just keep my suit in one spot or what; I was in more danger of accidentally flying _into_ one of her shots instead of actually getting hit due to good aim."

The other him howled.

"Shut up! I was born and raised in the colonies. I had no need to learn to fight!"

"Oh, my god, you should have seen it. And then her allies shot at her, and I had to save her, and she _got pissed with me for it!_ Woman did not know the meaning of grateful. Oh, and when she went to see me! First off, civvies have no earthly clue how to restrain a fuckin' Gundam pilot; it was sad. I'll give you the lowdown later. But she – and I swear, I can't make this up – she actually pulled out a gun, _safety still on_ , and put it against my head. Literally. Touching. And got all smartass, saying she'd managed to take me down – I just can't, man, it was too good."

The other him was practically rolling. Hilde's complexion had dipped very far on the 'humiliated' side, and Duo was grinning outright. The pain of losing his Hilde was almost tempered by sharing the memory of her. Maybe he could keep the other pilots alive, too, before he died. Keep them alive here, with the other him, who would remember his stories.

If that was all he could do for them, he would do it. It almost made his heart light to think someone else would remember, would think on them. Would understand.

"I got much better!" Hilde snapped.

"Wait," Duo said, letting his grin widen to epic proportions, "are you admitting that I, liar extraordinaire, actually explained what you were like when you first signed up? That I, perhaps, might have the slightest inkling of what I'm talking about?"

Her mouth flapped open and shut like an old screen door. Duo wished he had a camera rolling.

The other him finally sighed. "All right, Duo, you've won this round." So far, Duo had won every round. "Just let it go."

Duo's brow shot into his hairline. "I cannot believe you," he said, and because they were the same person, the other him understood. It was amazing. Without words, Duo told the other him that he was being stupid by holding her to a standard that he didn't hold others to; that he couldn't make any sort of progress if he protected her precious little feelings and kept what he really thought to himself, and that if he just tried to make himself look a little more human, maybe she wouldn't have such a ridiculous pedestal with his name on it. The other him just glared.

And again. Score another point for Duo. Really, it wasn't fair. The fights were just too one-sided.

The buzz of the approaching landing point nearly made every last one of them jump. The other him acted just a split second before Duo did; while Duo was used to jumping at signals, the buzz wasn't a sound he was used to, and so it was the other him who led the way back to the cockpit. Duo, ever the gentleman (ha), let Hilde take the co-pilot's seat again, even though, since he'd arrived first, by all rights, it should have been his.

He was a saint. He should find his old priest garb, because really. Saint.

They were still about fifteen minutes from anything really happening – unless they received a crisis call from the colony, which wasn't likely with the whole 'peace' thing. So Duo decided to actually get down to some gritty details. "So who's actually leading this whole political scandal?"

"It's not a scandal," Hilde said, her personality apparently stuck on 'contrarian,' but the other him gave him a straight answer.

"His name is Osiris Sloan. He's been contesting Relena Darlian's position since she's taken it." The other him ignored Hilde petulant glare, as if the very act of telling Duo anything was tantamount to betrayal. "He's not affiliated with any old groups, including White Fang," he said before Duo could ask. "But it's said that many of the men he's seen with were old Alliance. That group that existed before Oz?"

There was a pause, and Duo realized the other him was actually waiting for a response. "I know. I fought them." He neglected to speak on the shit that happened at the New Edwards base because, well, they'd all fucked up. And it was a sore spot for his old Heero, and he'd just learned to not bring it up. No amount of 'we were played' had ever made his Heero feel better about it, anyway.

"You did?" the other him asked, sounding suddenly much more interested in the conversation.

"Sloan?" Duo prodded. The other him sighed. He hoped he never sounded that petulant. Had he? No. Heero never would have given him a second glance if he had. Surely.

"He's a big shot for one of the colonies. Apparently he experienced a lot of influence under Oz's rule." Well, that explained why Duo had never heard of him. Oz's influence never really got much more than a short kickstart in Duo's world. It was odd to think there were enemies here that Duo had never heard of, all because of a five year gap. Depressing proof that man's hunger for power would never be satiated. "He's been lobbying to take Darlian out of the game for a while now. He's used every trick in the book – too young, too inexperienced, too naïve, too _female_ , for crying out loud. None of it's worked, of course." The other him flashed him a look. "Have you heard of her?"

Duo snorted. "I knew her personally."

The other him frowned. Duo recognized that look – it was the look of someone who was questioning his decisions, who believed he might have severely messed something up. Duo apparently knew far more people than the other him. His sphere of influence was wider. The other him finally said, "well, he's been slowly growing what looks to be a sort of militia. He's also repeatedly ignored the orders to get rid of any non-AI weaponry. It's been escalating, but quietly. Some people expect war."

"Assassination first," Duo said.

The other him nodded. "Yeah. Definitely."

They were silent then as the other him steered the ship into docking space, clearing himself for landing with someone who seemed unimpressed with how last-minute the other Duo's traveling manifests had been sent. The other him smoothed it over with a lie about documents that were needed for the board meeting happening the next day – the board meeting Quatre would be attending.

Suddenly, Duo was nervous as hell.

It didn't take too long to land, Duo was sure, because the other him coaxed the loader into picking him above another guy who was reading the man the riot act for being only a couple of minutes late, and the loader apparently took a perverse glee in telling the other man he would have to wait some more. So maybe it was even faster than usual. Duo didn't know; civilian landing was still new to him. But every minute seemed to stretch into hours, and Duo was antsy to _move_ , to _act_. If he was going to meet with this Other-Quatre, then he'd better just hurry up and do it, or else he might just find his fight or flight instincts carrying him in the other direction.

It was like meeting one's long-lost ex, Duo decided. Or maybe like meeting one's lover when they return from a war. Or maybe it was something a person couldn't label – meeting someone he thought he knew, or had once known, and knowing they were different now than they'd been, and that the closeness might be gone. Would be gone. Because this other Quatre and the other Duo had never met before.

The pain, when it came, ripped from his chest to his head to his gut, and no amount of rubbing made it go away. He gasped as quietly as possible as the loader finally led Death's Hand into docking space and gave them the all-clear.

The other him turned and looked at him as he locked up the controls. The man's gaze was hooded.

Duo gave the other him a fuck-all grin. The other's gaze darkened even more.

Well. He guessed it made sense that the other him wouldn't fall for it. It gave him a bastard mix of annoyance and warmth. With the pain roiling in his gut, he thought it just might make him puke.

The pain didn't ebb until they were far away from the ship, past the shuttle bay and sliding into the first cab they saw. Hilde managed to slide in with her arms crossed in the oddest feat of limber petulance he'd ever seen in his life, and the other him slid in next to her, sacrificing himself to the middle seat in order to keep the two of them separate.

It was a long, silent, extremely uncomfortable ride.

The buildings went from industrial to governmental in four blocks; it was pretty easy to spot. Boring, simple structures with little more to them than integrity changed to apple green lawns and bright white buildings with columns and tiny balustrades that no one could ever actually stand on and uselessly fancy walls, concave in places just to show depth, or perhaps to show how much money could be wasted on a single building.

The cab finally pulled up at one that had no less than ten World Nation flags all over the front of it, and Duo found both himself and the other him rolling their eyes. Hilde glared sullenly at them both.

Duo stepped out of the cab, his eyes trapped on the building before him. Inside was Quatre. Not his Quatre. Never his Quatre. But _a_ Quatre. And he needed his little brother something bad right then.

They managed to walk up to the gates before they were stopped by the patrolling men in black. Duo thought they might take about three seconds before he could take them down, and he had to fight not to roll his eyes again. Of course, taking those down in front of him would make those on the perimeter shoot him, so he supposed they were doing well enough. And three seconds was actually pretty good considering. "We're here to see Quatre Raberba Winner," he said. Before the man could snort and shoo him away, he continued. "It's urgent. Tell him we know Rashid."

It technically wasn't lying; it was semi-urgent, in that they were looking for vital information and Duo was sort've on a tight schedule, what with the imminent death. And he did know Rashid; it just didn't mean what he knew the man in black would take it to mean – that he'd been sent by him. Which he most certainly hadn't. The Rashid in this world didn't know him. Hell, for all Quatre knew, the Rashid in this world might be dead.

And that saddened him, because the Rashid in his world was dead, too, and that would mean that he would never be able to make the gruff man shake his head in resignation ever again.

The man in black stared hard at Duo, then at the other him, marking the similarities and narrowing his eyes. Duo lifted his chin, and finally the man put a hand to his ear – stupid move; honestly, the earpiece could pick up the sound of his voice just fine without his hand announcing which ear it was in – and said, "message for Representative Winner. An associate of 'Rashid.' Verify."

The man said Rashid's name like it was a code name. Duo bit back his snicker.

The other him looked at him with a raised brow when the man wasn't looking, and this time the snicker slipped out. The man glared, and they were ushered into the building, three other guards at least coming up to ensure that if they tried something, they'd get shot for their trouble. Of course, Duo alone could probably have taken them out without too much trouble, but with the other him beside him, the men were a joke, limp, Hilde and all.

He reconsidered that as they were led into a waiting room with only the one door. Hilde in this world was probably even less of a hindrance than his Hilde, and by the end of the war, she at least managed to learn the basics of stealth he'd taught her and had slipped onto the Libra. The Hilde with better military training and time spent with the other him could probably do even better.

"Hey," he said as the four men pointed imperiously at the benches and chairs at the sides of the room. He barely bothered to care about the luxuriousness of the chairs, red cushions nearly swallowing Duo up as he sat and crossed his legs, because fuck those idiot Secret Service guys, anyway. The other him did the same at nearly the same time, and they shared a grin before he continued, "did your Hilde sneak onto the Libra?"

The other him didn't bother looking over to see if the SS men were listening in, because they were probably trying very hard to listen, and they would probably presume anything they said was code. And if they didn't, they would think the two Duos were insane, and if they tried to make them leave, then Duo would be finding out just how many seconds it would take to take them all down. "Yeah, she did. Came out swinging, too. Took out a couple of enemies chasing her suit."

Duo grinned. "Injuries?"

The other him grinned right back. "A couple scratches. Nearly joined us at the end, but I talked her into staying with the Peacemillion."

Definitely better, then.

The room was so boring Duo ended up picking at the beige paint to try to entertain himself. The men in black didn't like that; they kept glaring at him. One kept twitching for his gun. Duo targeted him as the first to have to go if it came to it. Otherwise, there was nothing but a couple coffee tables and more chairs, and horribly outdated and boring magazines to 'entertain' guests. And if those didn't work, the endtables on either side of the benches had week-old newspapers. Duo went back to picking at the paint.

Footsteps hurried up to them from outside the room, and both Duos turned and looked. Hilde, arms still crossed over her chest in the most ridiculous impression of a child Duo had ever seen from her, finally turned, as well, and lowered her arms to her sides, either in preparation for attack or because she finally realized she was in a government building full of officials while she threw her temper tantrum. Judging by her blush, it was the latter.

Then the rushing person rounded the corner, and Duo's breath caught. At first, all he could see was that familiar thatch of blond hair, perfectly combed as usual, and the slight build, the short stature – and yea for someone being shorter than him! – and those sky-blue eyes. But then he paused, hesitated, drew a deep breath, because those eyes were not his Quatre's eyes. There was no sense of wonder, no joy, no buoyancy. There was no small smile ever-tilting the corners of that mouth.

Something was wrong.

Duo barely managed to lean forward to stand before Quatre's little brows furrowed and his mouth petered into a small frown. What had first looked to be outrage flickered into confusion before settling solidly into something else. Those blue eyes rested on the other Duo. "I know you," he said quietly. Duo wondered if maybe the memories of the Quatre he'd known had somehow found themselves over to this other dimension. Then Quatre shook his head and turned to the men. "You may leave," he said. His voice was that authoritative one he'd used at the end of the war – hell, whenever something needed to be done. It relaxed something in him, even as the mantra kept playing in his head.

_Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Something's wrong._

"Do you want one of us to stay with you?" one of the men asked, and Quatre shook his head. When he gestured to the door, they actually left single file. Duo waved them a jaunty good-bye and found the other him doing the same. Hilde just looked between them, her face scrunching up into that weird constipated look again.

Quatre watched the men leave, then closed the door. Then he turned, deliberately standing over them, too close for them to get up themselves. "What is a Gundam pilot doing looking for me? And how do you know Rashid?"

The separation Quatre made between the Gundam pilots and himself made Duo frown. "Didn't you pilot Sandrock?" he asked, his mouth going off on its own, as usual.

Quatre frowned at him. "Who are you?"

"I'm him," he said, pointing his thumb at the other him. "But better."

"He's from another dimension," the other him said, his face completely straight somehow.

Quatre, bless him, was just as solid as always. He just blinked. He looked back and forth, from the other him to him and back, and his brows furrowed. "You both have the same center, but you're different."

Duo piped up, "five years will do that. Look, I'm sorry to bring up Rashid. He's okay, isn't he? Nothing happened to him?"

Darkness passed over Quatre's face, and Duo's heart sunk. But as soon as Duo felt the grief building, Quatre spoke. "No. Last time he checked in, he was fine."

Checked in? But Duo couldn't help the swell of relief. He slumped back in his seat, then rose up all over again. "And the other pilots? Do you know anything about them?"

Quatre frowned. It didn't look right on him, yet there were slight lines at the edges of his lips that said it did it a lot. A chill shook Duo at the thought. "Why did you come here?"

It wasn't subtle. It wasn't even polite. Duo sat back all over again, his breath stolen from him. He'd known going in to this that this Quatre would not be his Quatre, that there would be differences. And of course there were slight physical ones – still shorter, but more rigid of stature, and his baby fat was all gone now. Still-soft lines in a slightly oval face, aristocratic nose, hair cut just a shade shorter than when he was a teen.

But there was too much of _his_ Quatre in his looks still for there to be any doubt. No, the only thing that had really changed was his personality.

He was completely, totally different than the Quatre he'd known. And while he'd expected differences, just like with Hilde, he was left looking at a person who didn't match _his_ Quatre in such a way as to be another man entirely.

He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but thought maybe the other Quatre wouldn't understand the question. Unlike his Quatre, maybe this one couldn't seem to read right into a person's soul. He took a deep breath. "Things were different in my dimension. What matters is that you, I think, probably, unless you're... even more different than the you I knew, know about what's going on with this Osiris Sloan character." Quatre's eyes gave him away for a second, and thank everything Quatre still had that shitty poker face. Duo grasped that little piece of his old Quatre and held it to his breast; it might be the only piece he got. "The other me knows he's angry about Relena, and he's trying to take over. Do you know if he's willing to do it with force? Or, say, just how much force he'd be able to throw at the problem?"

Quatre had always been a quick one, had always known just when to push all his questions and concerns aside and deal with the matter at hand. Duo watched him process the scant amount of information he and the other him had given him, and he saw as that brilliant blond head of his came to a decision. "He's staging a coup. The planning's about over; Rashid has gone to verify the situation, but as far as we know, he still has non-AI suits and a backlog of weapons confiscated from those in his country under the pretense of following Relena's law."

Duo frowned. He had no idea what 'non-AI suits' meant, but the rest sounded bad enough. "He has an entire country's worth of armaments?"

Quatre nodded. "I take it your aim is to stop him."

"Damn straight," the other him said. The vulgar phrase made Quatre blink, just as it had when Duo himself had first said something similar. Then, just as he had that day so many years ago, little Quatre blushed.

Duo turned to the other him, and he saw in the other him's eyes the same wonder he'd felt. Someone who'd fought in a war, who'd killed people, still held some sort of innocence inside him. But this Quatre didn't have it the same way his Quatre had. His Quatre had been full of hope. This one... this one seemed to have lost his.

He mourned the loss so deeply he thought it might have been his own. Quatre had always been the one looking forward, looking up, seeing starlight when there was only rain. He'd expected pain, meeting a Quatre that wasn't his. But it seemed this sort of pain could not be anticipated. Like putting on a salve; no matter how much one prepared, one always flinched at the cold.

"Then you'll want to see our records," he said, and he stepped back to let them up. While Duo stood without hesitation, the other him hesitated for a moment. Duo understood why an instant before he saw it: sitting down in that comfortable chair for so long had left him in the position to have to stand up on his bad leg, and it shook a little as he put weight on it. Quatre, of course, bred pedigree that he was, didn't so much as dip his gaze down. If it weren't for the slight quirk of his brows – an old look of concern that Duo recognized immediately from his old Quatre's mother-henning – it would have almost seemed like he hadn't noticed at all.

Hilde was actually the last to stand, and when she did, it was with several careful looks between Duo and the other him and Quatre. It seemed she didn't quite know what to do with the knowledge that Duo really had known a few of this Quatre's secrets, and wasn't sure whether to treat hospitable Quatre like an enemy or the well-known diplomat he was in this dimension. Duo wondered if her brain was tripping over itself. It probably was.

Quatre led them out of the room, waving away the two loitering guards and turning a quick corner deeper into the building. The walls were white now, and more flags hung like tapestries down the hall. Barf. Quatre seemed used to them, though, and ignored them. Duo tried to get a read on the guy, but it was like trying to read a stranger. He got the slight tension in his shoulders as a slight lack of trust, but the rest of him seemed... well, still guarded, but open. Rashid's name really was like 'open sesame.'

He cleared his throat. "So. Qat."

Quatre doubled-back, nearly tripped, and shot Duo a wide look. Duo grinned, even as he and the others had to stop to avoid smacking into Quatre. The blond blinked, then again. He frowned, then... paused. It was that look, the one Quatre always had right before he read people's minds. Like he was delving into a person's soul and reading it like a cipher. "We knew each other well."

Duo's grin faltered despite himself. "Yeah," he said. "But now there's you and him," he said, nodding over to the other him. "Even if there's only a sliver of the you I know in there, and the me I was – am? – in him, the two of you will really hit it off." He shrugged and shifted from foot to foot, and Quatre finally realized he'd stopped. He moved forward, down a perpendicular hall, then turning left one more time, and then he stopped in front of a room. Duo talked while Quatre put his fingerprint over the small pad by the door. "Can you tell me about those five years? Before the war?"

Quatre actually froze.

"Probably not," Duo answered before Quatre could do more than turn to him. "Probably pretty big, huh? Had to have been." He swung back on his heels. He knew very well that both Hilde and the other him were keeping their bodies balanced, as was Quatre. They'd never met before, and they weren't sure what the other would do. It was odd, because Quatre had never had such a problem before. He'd always been so sure of a person and their intentions. He wondered if that was it – if someone had hurt him. He thought of Trowa, then dismissed the thought. According to the other him, the Gundam pilots had never gotten together. But maybe that was just the other him?

He wanted to think that Quatre and Trowa would have the same reaction to one another as they had in his world, but he was no longer certain of that anymore. He wasn't sure if there was anything he could be certain of.

Quatre led Hilde and the other him inside, but stopped Duo as he made to walk past, as well. Duo was ready to be told to stay outside, that he wouldn't be welcome. But then he saw something of his old Quatre again, that shy, questioning look that he'd thought was dead. "You're from another dimension."

It wasn't really spoken like a question, but there was still a little lilt in the end there, like Quatre just needed to be sure. Duo hummed. "Yeah. It's weird for me, too." He took a breath, but then his mouth kept right on moving, the little demon. "It was supposed to send me back in time. To try to... undo things. Things got bad, Qat. You died." He hated the way his voice broke, how emotions leaked out like hydraulic fluid. He tried to bottle them back up. "But it didn't work right. The doctors – it was in the place in the desert, the one where you found the stuff for Wing Zero."

But at that, Quatre gave him a blank look. And Duo realized Quatre might not actually know what he was talking about. His jaw dropped.

"I – well – whatever." He waved it away, his mind skittering over and over again, thinking just _what the hell_ happened with the world if Wing Zero had never been remade. Did that mean Heero never piloted it? Somehow the thought just would not compute. "The doctors had a crazy amount of notes on it. I guess we could always go look for it again. Apparently they hesitated over it because they couldn't be sure of the laws that applied to it."

Quatre nodded. "The linear versus looped timeline."

"Right. Straight path no matter what, or unknown consequences." Duo rubbed his hands on his jeans. "Well, but they were more concerned with what would happen to them." Quatre frowned, and Duo said, "if there was a linear path, then they might not return to their time period, or if they did, it might be to find that they'd wasted time and resources. And if it was looped, then they would either return straight back to their shitty time period, or, you know... cease to exist."

Quatre frowned deeper, and those eyebrows pulled low into that concerned stare of his. "You did it anyway?"

Duo nodded. "I had no intention of going back, and ceasing to exist worked for me." Quatre looked startled. Duo thought he might have been, too. He wasn't the type to just give up. It was why he'd worked so damn hard on the machine. He'd wanted to try to save his world. His friends. He sighed. "Really, I just wanted to fight. Going down fighting wouldn't have bothered me."

Now, the chance had offered itself up to him again. Even in a world with peace, there was a battle to be fought. Duo winced and clutched his chest as the pain returned, building like volcano smoke. He still had some time. Even if he wasn't able to save his world, his dimension, his friends, he could save this one. The other him might have the family Duo had. He would, if Duo could make it happen.

Hey, it was a dying man's wish. Wouldn't it be nice if, just once, a dying man's wish might actually come true?


	3. Preventers

A mission. He'd once made fun of Heero for being obsessed with having one, with needing a purpose for the next moment of his day. But Duo understood now. It was a way to make sense of one's existence when there was no sense to be had. Nothing but suffering and loss; what was the point of surviving through it all?

He'd had only the idea of going back in time, of warning his younger self and the scientists, to get him through the destruction of his world. But now. Now he had goals.

Get rid of Osiris Sloan. Help the other Quatre. Find the other pilots. Get the other him and the other pilots together. Build up that camaraderie. Make a family for him.

It was something. It was everything. It was a mission.

Serious time was over; while he'd always found himself dropping his defenses around Qat – the man was a genius interrogator, those stupid eyes of his – Hilde popped her head out to see what the hold up was, and Duo pasted on a grin. She slid her suddenly narrowed gaze from him over to Quatre, and with him, it seemed she didn't know whether to glower in warning or hide any trace of tension. Her eyelids seemed so confused. "Coming?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral. Duo wanted to know why she was being so cautious around Qat – he was different, harder, but still had the look of a little blond bunny. Quatre nodded.

"Man," the other him said the instant they entered the room and closed the door, "somehow I just did not expect you to bring me to see _the_ Quatre Winner." Duo blinked as the other him shook his head. "I thought a guy on security, maybe, or some technician. I nearly had a heart attack when the Quatre you were looking for was Winner."

Duo frowned. "There can't be that many people with the name Quatre."

The other him shot him a look. "A fake name, maybe?" Duo scowled at the other him, and was rewarded with a stupid grin. "It's just – _the_ Quatre Winner, a Gundam pilot? What the fuck, man?"

Duo looked over to Quatre. "Are you famous or something?"

Both the other him and Hilde nearly choked.

"I'm a fairly well-known politician," Quatre said, and the other Duo spluttered all over again. Duo gave him a look. Wasn't he the one supposed to be having a hard time breathing?

"'Fairly' well known?" the other him said, staring at Quatre with wide eyes. "Dude, I can't turn on the news without seeing your damn face on it." And then the other him turned to him. "You knew him? The fuck happened to kill _him_?"

The other him recognized the mistake just as soon as he said it. Duo felt like his smile had been pasted on. "He got sick from the radiation. It killed him."

Everyone in the room was a bit quiet then. Quatre cleared his throat. "Here," he said, carefully moving around Duo – _his_ Quatre would have clapped him on the shoulder and given him a look asking if he was okay – and moved to the computer. "Osiris hasn't been subtle the last few weeks. We think he's planning to attack soon."

The other him cast Quatre a veiled look from the corner of his eye as the blond typed something into the computer. Duo spoke up before the other him could freak out. "By 'we,' do you mean the Maguanac Corps or the other pilots?"

Quatre jerked another look at Duo. Duo shrugged with one shoulder and sent the blond a grin. "Sorry." But he was only sorry because he'd given poor jaded-Quatre a fright, and not for the question. Duo kept his eyes on Quatre until the blond straightened from his crouch in front of the keyboard. While Quatre didn't seem to have the physical scars the other him did, he had so many on his heart he frowned at Duo like he might be an enemy. Duo just leaned back and grinned a bit more. Unless Quatre had been hijacked and replaced by a robot in this universe, Quatre would loosen up soon.

And he did. He sighed. "The Maguanacs," he said, like the words were being pulled from between his teeth. While Duo had no problem with people being different, this could not continue. Quatre was defensive. Miserable. It was blasphemy to let such a Quatre exist.

Duo nodded. At the look the other him gave him, he said, "Rashid's the leader."

The other him showed recognition at the name, then realized both that Duo was relaxed at the idea of Rashid's group being in charge of gathering the information necessary and that he was tense and fidgety because Rashid and the others actually meant something to him. So while Hilde kept giving Quatre a look between wariness and skeptical consideration, the other him relaxed. "Mind if I sniff around?" the other him asked, gesturing to the computer. Hilde gave him a look like he'd been replaced by an alien.

"Sure," Quatre said. Those bright eyes kept returning to Duo, then sliding back to the other him like he didn't quite know who to pay attention to first. Duo took it out of the blond's hands when the pain came back; though he tried to fight it, to do nothing more than clutch his chest like he had out in the hall, Quatre's eyes narrowed, and he moved to Duo's side. Duo waved a hand at him, and the blond actually hesitated. So not his old Quatre. "What's wrong with you?" he asked. There was no venom or anger there. Those brows were pulled deep into that 'concerned Quatre' look. "It's like you're breaking apart."

Duo grinned. It was probably a bit lopsided; he felt like he was going to keel over. He made sure he could still breathe before he said, "it's nothing."

The other him tilted his head. Duo couldn't quite explain it to him. While this wasn't his Quatre, he still felt like there were secrets he needed to keep. And with the others, Duo always felt he needed to measure up, to stiffen up and take things in stride, even if those things involved his very atoms trying to break down and dissolve. And then there was the other problem – the old-standing desire to never, ever see that concerned look melt into worry. Because a worried Quatre was both a blessing and a curse. The Quatre Duo had known had loved, with everything he was. And when those he loved got hurt, he went into a tizzy trying to do everything and anything that might need to be done to get them well again. That tizzy also included a level of mother-henning Duo could not believe. Only Trowa had been able to rein the old Quatre back, and from everything Duo was seeing of this universe, Quatre and Trowa hadn't even met.

So no thank you.

The other him finally turned the hell back around and started messing around on the computer. Duo was surprised by how easy it was to let him go on with the business of it and not dig around himself. Guess he trusted himself. Ha ha.

He did have a couple of things to worry about, however. Big things and stupid things. He tried to put them in a list of importance and found one thing refusing to go down to the bottom where it belonged. He scratched his head. He couldn't believe how something so stupid was starting to bother him. He had been able to borrow some of the other him's clothes, at least. They were a bit big on him – damn it – but it wasn't like it was a need. Still.

He sighed again, unable to swallow it in time. The other him gave him a look. "Qat," Duo said, and Quatre turned to him, already trained to the name. Mwahaha. "Think you could get those guard dogs to let me in and out?"

Quatre frowned. "I can say you're all personal security. That'll get you through. But I will be personally responsible for you," he said, and Duo recognized the firm lips and pulled brows for the warning they were.

"Don't worry, Qat, I won't tarnish your good name." Duo gave the man a grin. Quatre seemed completely disarmed. "Too bad, though; I felt like a good murder romp through the palace."

Thankfully, no one in the room took him seriously. Not even Hilde. So he turned to the other him. "I'll be back soon."

The other him tilted his head, but didn't take his eyes off what he'd finally found on the computer. "I'll fill you in," the other him said, rather unnecessarily, Duo thought. Which was weird. Usually he wouldn't leave a room without that verification. It almost itched, trusting someone this quickly. He left it and walked out of the room, hesitating just outside the door. He had other, more important things to worry about. Even if they shouldn't have been considered important and weren't worth worrying about.

But he'd done it before. Keeping his hair for the first important person he lost, keeping the braid and taking on the garb of those he lost after that. It meant something to him. So he left the room, ready to trace his way back.

"I have to get going, or else I'll be late to the meeting," Quatre said from still inside the room, his voice only showing a slight concern for leaving unknown people on his undoubtedly-protected servers.

"Thanks for everything, Quatre," the other Duo said. Duo recognized the openness and smiled. He knew the feeling of needing to be polite and open with Quatre – his Quatre, though. But maybe this Quatre and that Duo went together like Duo had with his Quatre. The other Duo spoke again, saying, "I'll spare you the 'Qat' thing until we know each other better."

Quatre grunted, and Duo wondered if he'd been making the man uncomfortable. He hadn't seemed that way – confused, yes, uncomfortable, no. "It's fine. I... don't mind."

There was something there that Duo hadn't heard in Quatre's voice since the blond had thought he'd killed Trowa. Yes, there was something horribly wrong in this universe, and it wasn't just that some stupid politician was trying to gang up on Relena's space. The best thing that had ever happened to him was getting to know the other pilots. Even with losing them, he wouldn't trade what he'd had for anything.

These guys needed each other as much as Duo had needed the other pilots. Well, he thought, his chest coiling like claws, he still had a bit of time to set that right, too.

He hurried away, hoping the other him didn't somehow know he'd listened in. The bastard probably did. Asshole.

* * *

Duo had already gotten his hands on more than enough money through a few quick hacks and an encrypted bank account, but he still felt edgy as he keyed in for the money at the ATM. But he got his money, and it wasn't monopoly money, and if the police were called, they didn't show up even after he waited ten minutes for their arrival. So he stopped loitering around the bank and searched for the first clothing store he could find.

He'd been wearing black, but it seemed the other him had a lot of blue and purple. Hilde's influence, no doubt. He grabbed black tees, got fitted for a black suit – they actually offered to hem it, but seriously, no. He wasn't that bad. He made sure it was loose enough to hide a weapon or two, especially the bone knife up his arm, the one he'd gotten past the idiot Secret Service. Then he bought black jeans, and finally stopped, mesmerized, his cart nearly half-full of some goth kid's wet dream, his eyes catching on a set of black stainless steel rings for men. He went up to the customer service counter and asked for someone to help him out. When a young woman around his own age came to speak with him, he pointed straight to the black rings. There were only two in his size, but that was fine. He grabbed one bigger and one smaller, then those two, and paid in cash for the overpriced things. Then he walked two blocks down and one block right, following the instructions the flirty girl had given him, to a pawn shop to get them engraved. More money gone.

It was only once he'd left the building that he took the plain rings and slid them, the bigger and smaller ones on one side and one of the ones that would have fit him on the other, until the metal clinked against his old cross. He hesitated, however, with the last, and turned it over and over in his hands. While it felt right to have the engraving for 5 on the left of his cross and the engravings for 4 (the smaller ring) and 3 (the bigger ring) on the right, it felt wrong somehow to put the 1 with the rest. Possibly because the loss there cut deeper, possibly because it just hurt to imagine tucking Heero away, hiding him the way he'd hidden himself for so many years.

He slid Heero's ring onto his left middle finger, and finally, he felt a modicum of peace. As if showing that he hadn't forgotten about them somehow made the loss more bearable.

They were still in his memories. He was swearing with his own body to not forget them.

The bags of clothing were damn heavy by then, and he caught himself a bus ride back to the government building. He wasn't allowed to bring the bags in, which made Duo roll his eyes and demand someone babysit his clothing then. He made a point of counting out everything he owned first, and gave the twitchy-fingered one a Shinigami grin before finally leaving the morons behind. Once more, the security sweep at the door missed his knife.

When he got back to the room, the other him seemed to be rereading, his chin propped up in one hand and his eyes glazing over in front of the screen. The other him gave him a lazy wave, not even bothering to pull his elbow off the desk, as he entered. "Happy now?" the other him asked.

"Yep."

And the other him hesitated for a moment, just long enough for Duo to see he understood, too, and then nodded. "Well, then, you have some catching up to do."

"Is it interesting?" Duo asked. The other him and Hilde were in the only chairs in the room. And it was a pretty small room, windowless – probably to keep snipers away – and square, with a small but sinfully comfortable bed, a desk and chair, and a reading chair and endtable sitting in the corner. Hilde had scooted the reading chair over at some point, and she leaned practically into the other Duo's lap as she tried to read. Duo just plunked onto the bed and wondered if he could sink into the mattress and potentially drown.

"It's not really riveting material, but it's informative." Duo hummed to show he was listening. Thankfully, while the pain in his chest had bothered him randomly while he'd been out shopping, and on his way to the pawn shop it had once again grown to clog his airways, it was only as the other him started giving Duo information that the pain crescendoed into a raging fit, the ache turning to a kind of heat that made Duo break out in a cold sweat, and he clutched his chest as the other him said, "Osiris Sloan was one of the men Treize Khushrenada had left in charge of a group of colonies. He had power, wealth, and a totalitarian worldview. When Treize was killed – I believe by another Gundam pilot – the colonies were stripped from him and given their individual freedoms. From power to nothing. Wonder how quick that pissed him off?" The other him cocked a grin over his shoulder, then frowned and stood in a quick rush when he caught sight of Duo.

Duo tried to wave him down, but the effort to move shot sparks all up and down his chest to his gut and up to his head, pulsing it straight from placid to pounding in less than a second. The other him touched Duo's forehead. Hilde made a noise, but Duo couldn't quite catalog it. "It's already gotten bad, Duo," the other him said softly. "Maybe..." But the other him stopped, because he knew just what Duo would say if someone tried to put him on the sidelines.

So instead he raced out of the room, leaving Duo alone with Hilde, whom he almost expected to come up and try to choke him while she had the chance. Instead she got up and peered over his shoulder. He tried for a glare. It was probably the sucking-air sound of his wheezing that lessened the impact.

"You might be right," Hilde said. Her voice was also quiet. Duo realized suddenly that it was the exact same kind of reverence people had at the bedside of a person's deathbed. "He needed to come here."

Duo lifted his chin. It gave the added bonus of making it slightly easier to breathe. "You take care of him," he said. The order was once again diminished by his breathy voice. Ugh. "He's stupid, just like me. He won't ask for help."

Her lips actually lifted for a moment. "Yeah. I know."

It was why she'd followed him, he realized. Not just because Duo was, to her, an unknown, and therefore a danger to those she loved, but because the other him was lonely, and she recognized it. Yes, he had a new family with the Sweepers. But those men, even though they were veterans in the same damn war, they didn't know the same thing Duo did. They didn't recognize the pain of a childhood where the war had already consumed you. They didn't know the constant fear of death, the adrenaline of getting oneself out of somewhere alive. And they didn't know the sacrifice of being a Gundam pilot. Handing over all of one's own hopes and dreams for the sake of everyone else's.

Quatre, Duo thought, might have learned that a bit too well in this dimension. So maybe Quatre needed them all just as much, if not more, than the other him.

Well, Duo could take care of that.

The other him returned with a tiny bucket of water and what looked like a handkerchief. He wondered who the other him had pilfered the thing from. The other him dipped it into the water and rung it out swiftly before placing it over Duo's head. Duo hummed. It actually felt really good.

The pain in his chest slowly lessened, the other him constantly wetting the cloth and patting it over Duo's face. It felt odd. Not the cool water, that felt great. But he'd never been treated like this, not even in the Maxwell church. He'd never gotten sick, and he'd never let Sister Helen treat him as weak, anyway. So he was left at a loss as to what to do. Push him away? But it felt good, and he still felt like if he didn't concentrate on breathing, he might lose the ability. So maybe tell him off? But it felt _good_.

He waffled back and forth until the pain finally ebbed entirely, and then the other him sat back, looking almost as lost and confused as Duo felt.

"So? The news?" Duo prompted, trying to break the silence without it crashing. He failed.

The other him sat back and rubbed at the scar on his face. It was a habit Duo hadn't had occasion to pick up. "Sloan's got an armory. Well, several, all interconnected throughout the three colonies he'd once been in charge of. Most are stored on an old meteor dump site."

"Lemme guess. That's where Rashid is."

"Got it in one," the other him said, quirking him a small grin. He still looked befuddled. "He's going to start attacking soon. The embassy, most likely. The only problem is that he's also going to launch an attack at several other points, and he most likely has mobile suits."

"Sounds like two problems," Duo grunted.

"I was trying to be optimistic."

Duo sent the other him a droll look.

The other him sat forward a bit and ticked items off with his fingers. Duo saw another scar he didn't have, just on the inside of the other Duo's right forefinger. "He has mobile suits. By the looks of it, no less than fifty. Considering every other nation has followed Miss Peacecraft's laws on getting rid of all non-AI suits and machinery, that means the man's virtually unmatched. That means he could have several mobile suits scattered over the area, and there would be no defense against them."

Duo held up a hand. "Hold on for a sec. Is anyone going to explain this 'non-AI' thing to me?"

The other him actually gave him a wide-eyed look, as if they hadn't been over the whole 'different dimension' thing about a thousand times by now. "I thought you had Gundams?"

Duo scowled. "We did," he said. "Technology? Different? Yes? Remember? Maybe?"

The other him scowled right back; Duo had always hated being treated like an idiot, even jokingly. "So I take it your Deathscythe didn't have the Zero System in it?"

Duo froze. The other him tensed, as well, sensing Duo's sudden battle-readiness. But it was aimless, and Duo struggled to get himself under control. His buddy was infected with that parasitic... _thing?_ And the other him hadn't fought against it? Hell, he'd _battled_ in it? Willingly? And Quatre? Well, Quatre had used it in his dimension, too. But still! Had that cursed thing messed him up? Was it somehow responsible for whatever had happened to him?

"What is it?" the other him asked, hovering suddenly by Duo's side, as if he was about to collapse or faint or something. Even if he had a valid reason for acting that way, it still grated. Duo was not a damsel in distress. Dammit. "Are you all right?" the other him asked. Duo was ready to bite the bastard's head off until he saw the odd look in the other him's eyes. More of that confused, lost look. Because Duo had never worried about someone to the point where he'd jumped up – well, he had, a couple of times, but those had always ended horribly. And Duo saw how, at the same time he realized it, the other him realized, and a horrible crashing look came over his face, and Duo suddenly felt like a heel for dying.

"You used the Zero System?" he whispered. He looked the other him up and down as if there could be some sort of sign stamped on his skin. Maybe in his eyes? But nothing; he looked completely sane. Well, Heero looked sane after using the Zero system. Or as sane as that man ever looked, ha ha. But the other him? Could he have handled it? Was Duo just mentally weak?

"So you know about it?" the other him asked. More confusion. "So Deathscythe _was_ cyber-conscious?"

Words. Duo was certain the noise that just jumped out of the other him's throat was supposed to be words. "What?"

"Or not," the other him muttered.

Someone knocked on the open door, and Duo turned to find Quatre standing there, an odd, almost trepidated look on his face. "The Zero System may not have been perfected in your world," the blond said, and Duo gave the man some mental applause for accepting Duo's explanation of events. That part of Quatre, the part that had always known whether someone was telling him the truth, seemed to still be there. And with his acceptance of Duo's story came something that looked a lot like hope.

"Perfected? The doctors hated it so much they got rid of everything but the blueprints. Wing Zero, remember? You found the plans and made the Gundam and took it out for a spin." Duo waved his hand around in what to him was Quatre spinning off with a Gundam and what to others might have been signs of epilepsy. "You mean they actually went back to work on the damn thing?"

"It's what made them choose to wait another five years," Quatre said. Duo knew his old Quatre enough to spot the weariness associated with a long and obnoxious length of time with other politicians. He quirked the poor blond a grin.

"Bad one today, huh?"

Quatre looked startled, and Duo remembered that this one didn't know anything about him, and didn't expect any knowledge in return. It hurt. He was a stranger to those who had been his best friends. Well, like his best friends. Best friend clones? Whatever. But then this Quatre gave Duo a small grin and said, "yes," and Duo felt an echo of Quatre's own hope in his chest.

"Well," the other him said, "if it's about the Gundams, then yeah, they have a better version of whatever it is you're freaking out about." Duo made a face at the man. The other him made the same face right back. "And it gave them something akin to a consciousness. The non-AI bit, though, was just the queen's way of keeping the things for us. They only work for us, anyway; no one else can pilot them, and that made a few people uneasy about our level of power. The non-AI thing gave the Gundams 'rights,' as it were."

Duo frowned. "But why not just get rid of them?"

The other him gave him a scandalized look. Quatre did the same. "If you knew what I was talking about," the other him said slowly, "you wouldn't say that. They're people, and part of you."

Duo just gave the other him a blank stare. Well, he would just have to check and see if Heero – if Heero is alive in this world, but don't think about that, just don't – had gotten rid of Wing. If he hadn't, then Duo could trust that there were extenuating circumstances. If he had, then no matter what the other him said, Deathscythe would have to go. Duo would just have to kill his buddy all over again. That was fine; he'd lost so many friends already, what was another one?

"Did you finish reading the reports?" Quatre asked when it was clear Duo wasn't going to continue his side of the conversation. The other him nodded. "Then you all know about the attacks."

"I haven't yet told him where they're to take place," the other him said, nodding over toward Duo.

"Then, Duo, if you could..." Quatre trailed off as both Duos turned to him. A strange look passed over his face. "Um, Duo-From-Another-Dimension, if you could..."

Duo laughed. He couldn't help it. "Oh, no," he said, nearly bent at the waist in hysterics. "That'll never do! Here, here," and he wiped a tear from his eye and waved his hand, grinning up at Quatre. "You can call me–"

"No," the other him said.

Duo glared at him. The scarred bastard actually had the audacity to cross his arms like some sort of snobbish principal. "No," the other him said again. "You are not going by that name."

"Why not? I already do," he said. "Besides, it's perfect. I'm Shi–"

"No." The other him looked up to Quatre. "No." Then he grinned and looked back to Duo. "We can call you Mini Me."

Duo scowled. "You can be Scarface."

"Trio."

"Gimp."

The bastard's smirk widened. His eyes narrowed. "Junior."

Duo outright snarled, growl and everything. _"Senior_. _"_

Quatre clapped his hands together. "Well! We can wait on that minor issue for now, shall we? Until then, you, Duo," Quatre said, pointing to Duo, "shall we get you caught up while the other Duo," he said, pointing again, "gets everything together? I would like us all to retire to my home for now, if we could."

Such a politician. Duo wrinkled his nose, but he nodded. "Yeah, tell me about the places to be attacked and the rest of the firepower. _Senior_ here can go collect the baggage." He waved the man on. "Carry on, stooge."

The other him glared. "See you in a bit, _Junior_."

Ugh.

Quatre pulled him aside, and though Duo had no idea where the blond was taking him, he fell into step with the man, anyway. It was probably insanely stupid of him; this was not the Quatre he knew. But even as he tried to raise his guard, he found himself walking sedately, one hand even in his pocket, no matter how many times he pulled it out. Like a magnet, it slid straight back in. Wayward hand. Quatre dragged him down a few hallways, until he met up with a few bigshots. Duo glared at a couple who came to speak with Quatre, and the men stopped in the middle of the hallway, unsure if they should treat the supposed bodyguard with respect or just stay the hell out of the way. Quatre walked past them all, and when they made it to a clear hallway again, the blond turned and sent Duo a giant grin. Well, maybe he _was_ Duo's Quatre. A little bit.

This entire dimension thing was just confusing.

Finally Quatre led Duo to a small, empty room, a little square thing with one thin window and a couple of chairs facing some boring seascape. Duo cocked an eyebrow as Quatre closed the door and turned to the painting. "Four places could be struck, but most likely only three of them actually will. The first, and most obvious, is the Sanc estate." Duo nodded. That one was just common sense, in any dimension. "The second is here, at the embassy. It will most likely be the first target, and a decoy to divert attention from Sanc. And when Sanc is attacked, Preventers HQ most likely will be, as well, in order to keep them from reaching Miss Peacecraft."

 _Miss Peacecraft_. Duo didn't think he'd ever heard her name said like that. It sent shivers up his spine. He barely managed to stop himself from correcting Quatre. Did Relena not know any of them? Was she fighting to lead this world alone? Did she have anyone watching over her from the myriad of people endlessly trying to kidnap or kill her? Had she just gotten pamphlets made to hand out to every person kidnapping her, to show them what to expect from the situation? She'd gotten kidnapped so often even with the pilots next to her; he couldn't imagine how often it happened without them around.

"And the rest?" he asked, trying to think of where he might be able to find the other pilots. Where could he even start? Quatre was the only high-profile one of them, and he'd been counting on the blond to lead him to the others. Even if he'd never gotten in contact with them, wouldn't he have tried, or wanted to, or even just considered it? But this wasn't his Quatre, he reminded himself for the millionth time, and when he saw the short hesitation in Quatre's eyes, he could believe it. His Quatre would have trusted him implicitly. "If it were me," Duo said, "I'd hit one of the L1 colonies. Make us choose civilians or leaders." A light in Quatre's eyes. Well, then. He was right there, at least. "The other place?" He hummed, tapped a foot. "This place is only about a thousand miles from Sanc. Before they hit Preventers, they might want to hit a place far enough to force people to got o the other side of the world? Though I have no idea where would be important enough for that."

Quatre cleared his throat. They're going to attack the second grouping of colonies in the L1 sector. Rashid checked the timing; it should happen in just a few days, and will be about the third to be attacked."

Which meant two others first – the faraway place, most certainly, and then Sanc, and, right around the same time as Sanc, the colony cluster. Then, if all else failed, the embassy would be hit, because if you can't chop off the head, then chopping off its legs and arms couldn't go amiss. And if the colonies were going to get hit in a few days, then the faraway place was no more than two days away, and potentially less than one. They didn't have much time at all, and yet Quatre wanted them to retire to his home?

 _Ah_. Of course. He wanted to get to Sandrock.

"Qat, I'll leave the other me and you to take care of that, okay? We need somebody meeting with the others before this attack hits." At Quatre's blank look, Duo realized Quatre hadn't been listening with that ESP sense of his, where even though Duo often spoke in the middle of his thoughts, Quatre picked right up on it. "Sorry. I know you want us all to meet at your place and go over the plans before you grab Sandrock and jet, but we need more people on this than the Maguanacs and you and the other me." Duo jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "And we need you guys and the Preventers to work together, right? I'm sure they have a good amount of info, too, even if they don't have what you do. They'll be coordinating their own plans of action, and it would help everyone if we all worked our plans out together. I'll grab the Preventers, and you and the other me can work to plan out what you can while I do. Okay?"

Quatre stared at him with wide oceanic eyes. "Okay," he said, and Duo twisted around to leave. "Duo."

Duo turned right back around. "Yeah?" That voice had been _his_ Quatre's. Slightly breathless, a bit hopeful, almost uncertain. The sort of Quatre that was about to ask Duo a personal question and wanted Duo to not be mad at him for it. Duo smiled. "What is it, Qat?"

And oddly enough, the nickname relaxed him. "Did – do you know if my father lived in your dimension?"

The question sounded so innocent, almost childlike. Duo hated having to shake his head. Quatre's eyes sparked in pain. "No," Duo said. "It messed you up bad. If it weren't for Trowa..." But Quatre, in this dimension, didn't know Trowa. And, in this dimension, before the Gundam pilots had ever even been released for Operation Meteor, Treize Khushrenada had already taken control of the colonies. Which meant the Winner Foundation's head would already have stood up against the Oz insurgency. Which meant, before Quatre was ever a Gundam pilot, his father had been killed by the colonists.

Duo gasped as it all crashed on him, and despite himself, he felt something like agony twist his chest. Quatre winced and rubbed his chest, then blinked and stared at Duo like a stranger all over again.

Gods, no wonder Quatre wasn't his Quatre. Little Qat had lost it for a bit after what had happened with his father. Duo hadn't been there to witness it, but one drunken night after Quatre's death, Trowa told Duo all about it. How Quatre, in Wing Zero, had run around in outer space, destroying anything and everything he met up with. How the little blond had even destroyed a colony. How, when Trowa and Heero had gone out to meet up with him, Quatre had been mad with grief, lost in confusion. How only Trowa's plea to come back, to bring back the Quatre he'd known, had calmed Quatre down. (And _that_ piece had been given to Trowa via Heero, who had been there to watch Quatre nearly lose it again after having killed Trowa.)

"Qat," Duo said, "why did you become a Gundam pilot?"

Quatre stood straight, but it seemed almost like Quatre was receiving blows. "The colonies couldn't be trusted with the future, or with their own happiness."

Duo wanted to hug him. Quatre had always been a tactile person, even though Duo was anything but. He hesitated for a second, then said _to hell with it_. Even changed, this was Quatre at his core. Embittered and hurting, this was a man just as kind and good as his Quatre, and like another little brother, Duo would protect him with his life. And this time, he wouldn't fail.

He swore, as the man, now the tiniest bit taller than him, and damn everyone for growing taller than him faster, wrapped cautious arms around Duo's waist and squeezed suddenly as if beneath his feet was a riptide, he would find Trowa Barton and save his little brother. Duo squeezed Quatre back, just as hard. "You and the other me will get along great," he said, suddenly sure of it. "I promise, Qat, you aren't alone anymore."

Quatre's shoulders jumped, and Duo recognized the signs of little Quatre's tears. He didn't say a word as Quatre struggled to get himself back under control. He stayed silent until finally, Quatre hid his face in Duo's chest and nodded. And he kept holding Quatre until he finally pulled back himself, minutes later, and gave Duo a tiny little grin before shooing him on his way.

And it was only after Duo turned down several corridors and finally found a janitor's closet that he sunk to the floor and tried in vain to catch his breath.

* * *

He didn't have his computer, so it was with a dwindling supply of money that he booked himself a quick flight to Sanc.

He would be lying to himself if he didn't fidget the entire trip, trying to imagine just what he would say if he walked into Preventers and found Heero there. Really, what _could_ he say? 'Hi, I'm your almost-boyfriend from another dimension! I know you're not him, but do you mind terribly if I fawn all over you and cry inconsolably about my loss and how much I missed you?'

Yeah, maybe not.

Then again, any meeting was bound to be awkward and depressing. If meeting a not-Quatre could get him this messed up, he didn't want to imagine meeting a not-Heero. He suffered chest pangs just thinking about it. And apparently he was picking up a new habit, where instead of fiddling stupidly with his braid, he twisted and tugged on the ring on his finger. He stared long and hard at the _'1'_ on the face as the shuttle jockeyed into the landing dock. The engraving was thin, slightly, like a jagged slice across the sensitive pad of his thumb.

As soon as the lights for safe exit flicked on, Duo was out of his seat.

Sanc wasn't much different than it had been before – well, before it had become a corpse-ridden pile of craters. Those few months before the Maremaia uprising, then the weeks before White Fang's return to power, Sanc had been this: streamlined buildings of cream and white, houses cut away from the government buildings in the back, businesses lining the streets on either side, joined nearly to the hip next to the hill leading to the Sanc estate, then petering off into house-like buildings that acted as quaint shops – a bookshop with little settee areas, an antique store nearly filled to the brim, a freakin' toy train store where one could buy knick-knacks for train sets, if one was interested in such an odd hobby.

Around the houses sat the general stores and the food stores, hidden for those who lived in the area, making sure the small businesses saw the customers first. Sanc, home of the cutesy ideals that somehow managed to stay afloat.

Preventers would be hidden far away from everything, Duo knew. In his world, it had barely left the princess' estate before everything started crashing down – literally, as White Fang turned its attention immediately upon Sanc. He didn't know exactly where it would be, however – far from the princess' home, since she would never want to be affiliated with such violence, oh ho, no sir, but definitely close enough that, if the situation called for it, she would get immediate reinforcements. So, he reasoned, just off the shopping district, fairly close to the shuttles. Yay; short trip.

Duo was wholly unsurprised when, just two blocks to the left of the docks, he found a sign pointing him toward Preventers. How useful. He wondered how Preventers enjoyed their publicity. Well, whatever. Their loss, his gain. He found a bus stop, but when he saw that the bus wouldn't arrive for another twenty minutes, he decided to just hoof it the rest of the way. It was only another five blocks or so; he would arrive around the same time the bus would have come to pick him up.

Before he left the bus stop, he sat on the bench and waited for his chest to stop tearing apart. It took so long he feared one of the passersby was going to call for an ambulance. He got up on unsteady feet and started moving, hoping he would be over it before he arrived at the place.

The Preventers building was ostentatiously visible long before he arrived; it was modern, and about eight stories tall to everything else's four, five max, and steel and beams and cables where everything else was stucco or brick or something Duo couldn't even identify but thought was maybe just tarted up plaster. It shot into the sky like a sore thumb as soon as he escaped the docks and the shuttles stopped shooting past his vision. No wonder Preventers didn't care about the signs. They were the least of their problems when it came to visibility. He chuckled. Of course, Relena would never allow them to hide as if they didn't exist – that would be like trying to hide weapons, or to try to encourage some sort of underhanded violence, or whatever ridiculous ideas the woman could think – assuming, he thought soberly, that Relena was the same girl he'd known. Which she probably wasn't. And Une, assuming she was remotely like the old Une, would have proudly displayed the Preventers she helped put together, anyway.

Still, he wasn't positive those were the reasons, not anymore. He couldn't count on his own memories to tell him what people were thinking. He had to remind himself that he didn't really know these people. Even after learning why Quatre was the way he was, it didn't change the fact that he still wasn't the Quatre he'd known. And how painful was that, that even after learning about what this Quatre had gone through, he'd thought only of his old Quatre, of what _that_ Quatre would have wanted. What if this Quatre hadn't wanted touch? What if that tactile Quatre had been gone? He could have messed things up considerably.

He rubbed his face with one hand and sighed as the ring on his finger caught for a millisecond on his nose. He had to remember that the ones he'd loved were gone. He couldn't pretend to stick them into these other pilots' shoes and act as if he had them back. That was an insult to them and to these new guys in this dimension.

But, oh, how this Quatre had seemed just like his old Quatre in that instant. He couldn't have helped, then, but to do exactly as he had. And thankfully, this Quatre hadn't seemed too upset about it. He'd almost appeared grateful.

Because, he thought, confusing himself all over again, for the most part, _this_ Quatre actually _was_ _that_ Quatre, only five years different. So it was Quatre, but not-Quatre, as well. Clone-Quatre? Only it lived the same first fifteen or so years that his Quatre had.

 _Give it up_. He no longer made sense even to himself.

And thank goodness, but it was around then that he arrived in the Preventers parking lot.

He was unsurprised to see the door wired with some sort of metal detector, and wouldn't have been surprised if it also informed whoever was watching – and Une herself, if she was half the psychotic witch she'd been in his world – of just who it was that passed through those doors. Of course, what did he have to worry about? It could recognize him and he'd still be in the clear. And of course, if none of the Gundam pilots had ever gotten to know one another, what were the chances they would have record of some random street brat? And if they did recognize him, wouldn't they flip their gourds trying to figure out how he'd de-aged himself and lost some scars?

If they did think he was Duo Maxwell, watching their reactions would almost be as good as watching Howard's had been.

He strolled in, amazed when the sensors around the door actually went off; so his bone knife had finally been caught? And look at that reaction! Every single freaking Preventer in the lobby stormed the door, guns up, some automatically kneeling onto one knee while other aimed over their shoulders. Duo grinned and lifted his hands. "I'm here to speak to Une about what's gonna happen in a couple of days. I'm a Gundam pilot." True and true; he just wasn't one of _this world's_ Gundam pilots. Splitting hairs, really.

None of the officers seemed particularly appeased, and Duo rolled his eyes. "Do I look like I have a weapon on, guys? Really? Maybe a gun hidden in my jeans? Or up the bottom of my shirt, maybe. A really tiny, compact gun."

"There's far more weapons than just guns," one man said when a few actually flagged. Duo grinned wider as the man stepped forward. He was older than Duo, too, but only by a year. Duo wondered how old the guy would have been in his world, if he'd have been alive. If he'd even joined Preventers yet, or if he'd ever had the inclination. In any case, it had been a good choice for him in this world. The others, several much older than Duo, got their shit together at the man's words and aimed at him again. A couple civilians were herded out of the room by the cops stuck at the reception desk.

The entire group moved like a well-oiled machine, and Duo wanted to applaud them. Was this what the Preventers would have been like if they'd been given the time to become anything? He could see it; rather easily, actually. With Une as leader, how could they be anything less?

"Truss me up if you want," he said, his smirk most likely making it clear that he would definitely get loose from said restraints. "I just need to find out how you guys are coordinating things so that we don't get in each other's ways."

"And just what do you plan to do?"

Duo turned, a grin already forming on his face. "Sally?" He clapped eyes on her and almost shrieked like a girl. He'd really, really missed this woman. She'd fought like a hellcat until she'd fallen to the radiation. The woman looked the exact same as from his world. He grinned. How many women were absolutely pissed that Sally had some sort of anti-aging magic hidden somewhere on her?

"Do we know each other?"

Duo shook his head, refusing to get upset by the question. No one here knew him, and he only knew them partly. A little bit. Sort of. Well, he knew the them that existed before the five years bit. Did that count?

Ugh, great. Another headache.

"Actually, I don't think we do," he said, ignoring the fact that he'd just said her name. Surely she was still the big bad doctor of Preventers HQ? Even though she'd been that for about a week, so maybe she'd moved into the field? Or something? He let it go for the moment. "I'm gathering up the pilots. It'd be easier if we all worked together on this, right? Unless you want everyone heading to one location and leaving the others vulnerable."

Sally took over for the young blond dude, pushing past even him to stand in front of Duo, hands on her hips, gun still tight in her grip. "And we have evidence of you not being part of this?"

"Can you prove negatives?" he asked, because he recognized her half-sarcastic banter when he heard it. It was her default tone, after all. "Look. If you want to have this conversation here, I can start dropping spoilers. Or you can lead me up to the top floor and we can all discuss this like rational human beings, in secret like we're supposed to."

The woman's lips actually quirked. She looked furious with herself for it. "How about I do you one better? You hand over all your weapons without a fuss – _all_ of them, pretty boy – and I'll let you go up with Agent Gremsky here."

Gremsky, huh? Duo sent the blond a quick grin. "You and me, huh? Sounds like fun."

The man's trigger finger twitched.

Duo laughed. "All right, Sally." And because he knew the woman was not above frisking him naked in public, he took his bone dagger out, then another small switch from his boot. He didn't bring a gun; they weren't allowed on the premises, and he didn't need to be thought of as a terrorist or something before he even got in the damn door. And because he liked her, he even lifted his shirt a bit and spun. "See? Nothing else."

She lifted a brow. "So only about one or two more," she said, and Duo couldn't help the ecstatic grin. She sighed. "You won't take them all off."

"Enemy territory, honey. As far as I know, you guys aren't half as altruistic as you appear."

Another quirk of lips, and another furrow of brow as she caught herself. She pointed to his shirt, and, knowing what she was referencing, he pulled out his necklace, showing that all that sat on it was a cross and three rings. She nodded, and he put it back. "Go," she said, pointing the way to the elevators, and Duo found himself curious about how difficult it would be to leave little Gremsky behind and take the elevators up alone. It would be fun, but he didn't think it would be a good idea to have Gremsky and the other Preventers calling up a red alert before he managed to at least talk to Une.

So he let Gremsky lead him over, let the Preventers part into two factions, one on either side, their guns still trained on him, the cops from the reception desk returning and flanking him, making sure he had to go through at least a couple of them to be able to escape, and he rolled his eyes. "Take care of my babies!" he called to Sally, and heard a small huff, perhaps one of laughter.

"Maybe it's a pilot thing," he heard her mumble, and wanted to jump for joy. She knew one of them? Heero, maybe? His heart jerked, tore a little, and he grimaced as the tearing seemed to turn a little more... literal. At least, he thought, let him make it away from the crowd.

The made it to the elevators, and Duo hit the button for up, something that made the man beside him growl. Agent Gremsky never lowered his gun, and it was starting to look a little ridiculous. Duo was painfully reminded of how Hilde had been before... well, before waiting five years in the military had hardened her. He took another look at Gremsky. "You got a first name? Mine's Duo. Nice to meetcha."

He let himself slip into the old slang, unsurprised when the man responded with, "Shut yer hole."

A rat.

Gremsky seemed to catch himself too little too late, and he stared at Duo with wide eyes. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Duo. Well, that's the name I chose for myself. You have your old one, don't you? People don't usually choose Gremsky as their last name, you know."

The elevator arrived with a ding, and the man actually jerked. Duo reached out and grabbed his gun, lifting it up and nearly pulling it from his grip. His heart pounded up into his throat. "Jesus, kid! Don't fuckin' jerk like that when your hand's on the trigger. You tryin' to get me killed?"

It seemed everything froze, and Duo realized he was still in eyesight of the other Preventers, and he'd just snatched the gun from the Preventer escorting him. Very slowly, he let go. Gremsky didn't know what to do, but slowly, he lowered his gun. "You could've done that at any time."

And now that Duo knew the fundamental background of the man, he recognized that he'd insulted the man. He scratched the top of his head. "Look, man, I don't feel like getting plugged when I just came to help. You know?" He quirked the guy a grin, but really, the headache and chest pain was getting more than a little distracting, and the elevator was about to leave. He hopped on it, and Gremsky, forced to act as babysitter, had to get on, too. Duo punched the top button, because that was where it had been in his dimension, and he didn't think Une's ego could stand to have it moved down or anything. "And yeah, I can grab it from you, but that's because you make it an easy target when you come close. Did you see Sally? She kept it ready to use, but difficult for me to grab. Any attempt to do so would have taken too long, and she would have easily been able to squirm away long enough to shoot me."

Jason tilted his head. So Duo had been right about that, too. Rat confidence, but rat smarts. Never look good advice in the mouth. Take it wherever you can find it, and if learning it doesn't hurt, all the better. Humiliation was a learning tool.

The rat considered this, then put his own hands on his hips – good memory, Duo thought, and grinned. "C'mon, man, I gotta know your name, it's killing me." Seriously. He might very well be dying on this stupid little trip up. If he could just get the guy talking, then he could recede into himself, just for a few seconds.

The man grumbled, but finally, sullenly, as he switched to crossed arms and quickly rejected the stance, he said, "Jason."

"Jason Gremsky, huh? Nice name." It sounded like a movie star's name. The boy wasn't bad looking, either. The naturally blond hair was right up there with Quatre's, just a couple shades darker, shorter than his due to Preventers policy – the reason he'd never joined, actually. He wasn't cutting his hair because of some ridiculous notion of better performance. As if his braid was screwing him up. Heck, even Wufei had a freakin' ponytail. And how come, Duo thought, his thoughts fracturing as the pain finally got to be too much, Wufei could keep his ponytail, but Duo couldn't keep his braid? Was it the bangs? The length? Or maybe Wufei's signing contract had included 'don't mess with the do.'

Then the claws tore into his lungs and Duo sagged against the wall. Jason looked over at him, dropping out of his boxing stance. "You okay?"

Duo tried to wave him off and barely managed to keep his balance. His head swam and pounded all at once, and he just sat down on the floor of the elevator as the damn thing dinged. Figured.

But then Jason surprised him, closing the doors and putting them in emergency stop. The man hovered beside Duo. "You sick?" he asked, and there was suddenly a lot more empathy in the man's countenance.

Duo grinned. "Dying, actually," he said, not afraid to admit it to someone who would think the same way he did – dying. Got to make his death count. Have to help the pack.

The man nodded. "How long you need?"

Rat ideals, rat speech. Duo wondered how long the man had been off the streets, how long he'd been in Preventers. If he'd joined the military. It was somehow relaxing, refreshing, to be speaking with someone he knew nothing about. He had no expectations to lose, or old memories to battle with. Just him, meeting someone new, both of them learning about one another for the first time. It was odd just how odd it felt. "Just... a bit." Because he didn't know how long, and he didn't think he had any more air to use to speak.

Jason nodded. "I guessed something might be wrong with you," the man confided, "seeing as you used the mute buttons instead of just speaking the floor number."

Duo used the last of his air to wheeze out a laugh. Of course the damn elevator was voice-activated. Stupid new technology.

Duo didn't bother correcting the man, because after all, it all basically boiled down to what he was saying, and it certainly wasn't Duo's prerogative to tell all and sundry that he was actually from another dimension and, hey, would anyone want to pick apart his brain? Stick him in a lab somewhere and watch his slow degeneration? No, thank you.

It wasn't as bad as it had been in the embassy, and for that he was glad. Just when his vision started popping out in spots, he sucked in a deep breath. It started off a racket of pain all up and down his joints, and he thought his tendons seemed to be snapping and his bones rubbing together, and his organs all shrank and squirmed, almost feeling punctured, and then it all faded like a dream.

He waited a few more moments, just to make sure he didn't faceplant the moment he tried to regain his feet. Then, when he did stand, he found he needed to hold on to the stupid banister, the one he'd once made fun of, because his knees felt weak. Damn. He hoped it would wait long enough for him to find the others. Maybe Sally knew where they were. He would have to ask her before he left. Une, too.

Jason didn't say anything, and for that, Duo was grateful. Preventers had picked up a great man in this one. Duo grinned tiredly down at the blond. "Lead the way," he said, and they both ignored how thready the words had been.

Duo had only gotten a vague look around the first floor, seeing as he'd been surrounded by guns, but this floor didn't seem much different, save the lack of personnel. There were still _people_ , of course, but they seemed like secretarial types instead of Preventers – possibly misleading, he thought, seeing one of the women toting a hidden pistol – but they were carrying papers and folders and phones, each of them sidestepping each other with practiced ease. While each and every one of them watched Duo as he passed them, all of them had the 'too busy to deal with it' look, as if daring Duo to try to start a conversation with them. If he'd been feeling less deathbed-sick, he'd have messed with them. As it was, he followed the line of beige carpeting to its inevitable end at the opposite side of the elevators, because the woman had her own private elevator, and everyone else must wade through the shit to get the honor of sitting in front of her.

But when Jason finally stopped him in front of Une's office and opened the thick door, Duo stopped. " _Noin?_ " He turned around and read the stupid plaque on the door. No, it certainly did say 'Commander Une.' So had there been some sort of body switch in this dimension?

"So you do know who we are."

Duo turned back around. Noin was leaning back in Une's seat, hands steepled, and Duo was amazed the Lady didn't have any alarms on the thing to let her know someone was sitting in her seat. "Are you actually the..." His thoughts trailed off as he tried to consider how Une would ever let anyone else lead her baby. He couldn't see it. It didn't make any sense. Even Noin. "Hell, I thought you didn't want to even be an active agent?" Then he thought again. That had been _his_ Noin, _his_ Une. Maybe they were different here? "Or not?" he tried.

The woman tapped her fingers together. "Or not," she agreed. She waved him in. "You seem to have some information on us, but I'm afraid we have little on you. A young man named 'Duo.' You say you were a Gundam pilot. That would have meant you were just a child during the war."

"An annoying yet astute observation," he said, splaying out in one of her chairs. "So, where's Une? Unless you've recently come into acquisition of the Preventers. In which case, congratulations. I do not envy you."

Unlike Sally, Noin had perfect control of her lips. She pulled them into a frown. "You are not one of the pilots."

"Yes, I am. Although, technically, no, I'm not, either. I'll explain in more detail later, but for right now, I think we should discuss that which is actually going to be important in the next few hours." He waved his hand. "You know, the whole Osiris Sloan thing."

Noin's glance flickered back to Jason, then back to Duo. "It seems more to me that you've come here for information of your own. You have nothing to give us." She waved Jason over. "Please escort this man down to our jail cells."

Duo sighed. "Noin, really? You and I both know that even the Preventers can't handle attacks in several places at once. Especially if those attacks include mobile suits. If we work together–"

"It's a bit too late to try alliance talks," she said. "The attacks have already begun."

Duo stilled. Already? That meant that far off place, wherever it was, was already being targeted. Did Quatre know? The other him? The Maguanacs? Duo stood. "So let me get in touch with my friends. We'll help. Don't give me that damn look!" Shit, he should have known! The Preventers had been a little _too_ prepared for an invasion, and the men and women just outside these doors had far too many responsibilities for there to be anything other than a state of emergency. Shit, shit, shit. "The enemy has mobile suits. You have no more than one or two of us pilots, right? Which means that if Osiris sends his suits out to more than one or two places, you guys and the civilians are all fucked. Right? And you're going to lock me up simply because you don't know if you can trust me? That's not acceptable. How many people are supposed to die before you realize you should've taken a fuckin' chance?"

Noin's lips pulled even further, until she looked like she was trying to form some sort of jowl. Duo heard a movement behind him and wondered just how Jason was taking Duo standing up to his technical rat leader. The man's loyalties would be to her first, no matter how easily the two of them had clicked.

"Listen to him, woman."

Duo froze all over again. How many times had he been surprised that day? It couldn't be good for his heart, even if the thing had been perfectly serviceable after his trip through dimensions. He turned. Amazingly, the man hadn't changed much in the five-plus years he'd aged. His lines were more defined, interestingly enough making him look almost girly, save for that severe hair style. "Wufei?"

The man cocked his head. His eyes narrowed on Duo as he leaned against the door jamb. "I do not believe we've met."


	4. To Battle

Duo shook his head, because no, they hadn't met, technically, but he couldn't possibly care. "We haven't, man, but it's still good to see you." He swallowed back the lump in his throat, because really, Wufei looked nearly _exactly_ the same, and Duo was so, so glad to see another one of them that he nearly screamed. Nearly cried, which, oh, no. Not happening. "How are you? No, wait. Do you know if Heero's here?"

The man's brows furrowed, and Duo recognized the confusion as opposed to anger, and knew the man's answer before he spoke. "Who?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it." So Heero hadn't joined Preventers, huh? Although, he supposed that wasn't too surprising. After all, Heero had only heard of it through Wufei, and if none of the pilots had ever really met, then how would he have learned about the position? Would Noin or Une have ever even spoken to the man to invite him over? But if Heero wasn't here, then where? Traveling all over the damn world? If so, Duo would never find him in time. He hadn't found the bastard until he'd shown up all of a sudden at Duo's – well, Hilde's – doorstep. That left trying to find Catherine's circus and... well, anywhere in the damn solar system; Heero could have disappeared, for all Duo knew.

Then he remembered just what Noin had been saying and turned back to her desk. Yes, there was a phone. But how to pick it up without the woman simply disconnecting the call? No, it wouldn't be possible; the thing was a freaking landline. And who knew landlines would even exist in buildings with freaking voice-activated elevators? Or maybe it was special, too, somehow, and he wouldn't be able to use it at all without figuring out the new operating system.

He looked at Wufei. "Hey, may I borrow your phone? I need to get in touch with the others."

"Who are the others?" Wufei asked. Oddly enough, his voice did not sound even remotely murderous. It made Duo's shoulders twitch. Wufei should be all over his ass, shouldn't he? Duo was an unknown person stepping into an ongoing investigation as if it was any of his business, and Wufei, Mr. Never-Trusting, was asking him questions like they were sitting down for tea.

"One of the other Gundam pilots and his entourage." Wufei's face did an interesting half-pucker at the word 'entourage.' "Hurry up, man! I need to know if the Maguanacs are there, too! 'Cause that's where Une is, right? Which means you most likely won't need them there? I'm guessing they didn't send any mobile suits, or else you'd have gone, too, right?"

Wufei lifted his chin. "Explain yourself."

And there was the old Wufei he'd known. But even as he thought that, Wufei pulled out his phone and handed it to Duo. Duo stared at it like it might explode. "Um..." He took it. Very, very gingerly took it. "Thanks...?"

Wufei huffed. "Quickly, if you could."

Duo couldn't stop himself from grinning; he'd make jokes about pod people, but really, he was the pod person in this scenario, and everyone else was normal. Hm. Maybe that was a way to think about it – he was the clone, and everyone else was an original.

Of course, that sort of thinking made his brain twist around and start trying to eat itself, so he let it drop and just punched in the other him's number.

"Yo, Junior," the other him answered, and Duo snarled despite himself. "I'm guessing you've heard? Have the Preventers done anything?"

"Their leader is out taking care of it," Duo said. "Tell me the Maguanacs haven't all gallivanted off."

"Just half of them," the other him said. Duo heard Quatre's voice in the background, and then the other him said, "yeah, he's here. He sounds all right. The Preventers haven't eaten him yet." Duo rolled his eyes. "Quatre can probably call at least some of them back if he has to. Right?"

Duo heard Quatre's affirmative. "Yeah, probably call some back." He turned a questioning brow to Wufei. "Une sent more than enough, right? Trying to give a show of power?"

Wufei's brows drew low, and Duo saw him working through things in his mind. "Yes," Wufei said finally. "We can handle it alone."

And that was just the usual Wufei arrogance, so Duo said, "leave a few, if you could; best to be sure. But the rest, yeah, they should probably head over here to Sanc. The embassy and the princess are next, and probably only a few hours away."

"I'm going back for Deathscythe," the other him said. "Quatre and the Maguanacs will meet up with you in Sanc. Do we have permission to revive our buddies?"

Duo turned to Wufei, not Noin, because he didn't really give a rat's ass what that woman wanted. "Do we have permission to use our Gundams?"

Wufei's brows pulled low. He exchanged a look with Noin. Duo didn't even bother checking behind him. "I am not in charge," Wufei said slowly, but Duo just rolled his eyes again.

"You and I both know that Noin is a freaking figurehead. Even if the world's turned topsy-turvy over here, there's no way she would care enough to take such a hand in Preventers or politics. She stays in Sanc for one reason, and it ain't no fealty to the queen. She just likes the older brother."

Wufei covered his mouth. Noin was much less quiet. "So," Wufei said. "You have done quite a bit of... research."

Sure, whatever. "So can we or not? Choose quickly, man; you only have one at the moment."

Wufei sighed. "Yes, you may." Duo relayed the message. "But I demand you turn them and yourselves over to Preventers, at least until we ascertain your motives."

"Motives, shmotives," Duo said, not bothering to inform the other him of the stipulation, since neither he nor they would have any compunction to actually follow it. Though he found it interesting that Wufei had actually agreed. Was that normal for the Wufei of this dimension? Or had Duo's bluff about Noin's power actually worked better than he'd hoped? At least Noin was obsessed with Mr. Lightning-Wind in this dimension, too. Although, really, Noin wouldn't have been Noin otherwise. Five years couldn't change that level of obsession. "We all know the shit's about to hit the fan, and you could use all the help you can get. Maybe you'd already know our motives if anyone had actually bothered to get in touch with everyone else during the damn war, but nooo, let's all just mosey along in our own little universes, refusing to interact with one another. You know what? That's totally not my fault. It's yours, and Qat's, and even _Senior's_ , the twit, but it certainly isn't mine. So now you're going to have to deal with not knowing who we are, even though we are and have always been on the same damn team. Got it?"

Wufei's eyes had narrowed partly through Duo's tirade, but the man merely nodded. "I believe I'm beginning to," he said, and Duo felt a little too uneasy from that statement. A calm Wufei was like a dragon rushing into the winds, gathering the clouds into a storm.

"I'm still on the line, _Junior_ ," the other him said and Duo just snapped.

"Then get off it and get your damn Gundam, _old man!_ " And he jammed his finger on the End Call button... belatedly noticing the damn blinking symbol of a microphone. Shit! Voice command options again. Mother sucker.

He looked up to find two very different pairs of eyes staring at him with the exact same expression. He cleared his throat. "So he's going to go get his Gundam," he said, trying to act as if he wasn't embarrassed. He chanced a glance at Wufei, but the man didn't seem pissed off, annoyed, or otherwise frustrated with events. He almost seemed... amused. But it had taken Duo _years_ to pull such a look from the stoic man in his dimension, so he thought he might just be a little lightheaded still. "Where are you going, Wufei? Either both of them can go to the other place, or one of them can back you up. Though, I think Relena's probably the one you'll need more people for. If we lose her, everything crumbles."

Wufei stood up straight. "How do you know about Relena?"

Ah, now Wufei was showing his badass side. "Because it's obvious? She's the one fighting hardest for peaceful unity. Now who in the world would a guy against peaceful unity target?"

Wufei huffed. Noin mumbled something Duo could quite catch. He was fairly positive he could guess the gist, however. "Look, guys, it's great to see you and everything, and I'm tickled pink to find you both here – and thrilled, let me tell you, to not have to deal with Une – but if we're that close to crunch time, then I need to find the other two pilots. Do you have any idea where they are?"

"You think we'll need more than three?" Noin asked, her voice rising.

"Four, technically," Wufei said, and Duo's heart nearly thundered straight out of his chest. He fixed his gaze on Wufei. The man jolted for a second, as if surprised to see Duo's desperation. Vaguely, Duo recalled Wufei insisting that he had what Wufei termed 'puppy dog eyes'. Did this Wufei have that weakness, too? He poured all his hope into his gaze, and yes! Wufei sighed and shook his head. "I do know where another is, but he's not one you'll want to speak with."

That could only be Heero!

"That's great! Where is he?"

But Wufei shook his head. "No. You wouldn't survive an hour in the man's presence." Well, that was what everyone had thought when they'd first seen Heero and Duo together, so it wasn't a surprising reaction. But Duo wanted to strangle Wufei, because the man was only slowing Duo down, and he didn't have enough time left for such nonsense.

But then again, where else could Heero be but here in Sanc? If he was _technically_ an ally, that meant he would be in one of the four known locations. Certainly not up in space, because how could anyone tell that he would stick around and not just hoof off the colonies or something? And not here, obviously, and not in no-man's land on the other side of the world, because again, no one would know. And it _suited_ Heero to hole himself up in Sanc and watch over peace, because the man was freaking OCD about Relena's safety.

He was in Sanc. He was watching over Relena somehow. As one of her bodyguards? Or maybe as some creepy stalker. Both were viable options for one Heero Yuy.

"Okay," Duo said. He rubbed his hands together. "Okay." He glanced at the floor, at the walls. Snuck a peek at Wufei, who seemed to be trying to put Duo together like a Rubik's Cube. "All right, this is how it is. One of the Gundam pilots is super famous and super rich. I'm not joking. Since he agreed to let me come here, I can only assume he's all right with me handing you guys the information. But let me warn you – you screw him over, leak any info you shouldn't, and the Maguanac Corps will fuck you up. Seriously. His name's Quatre Winner." Two wide-eyed looks, and Duo bowled over both of them. "The other's me." Well, him, but not really him, but maybe he shouldn't get into that part? "Name's Duo Maxwell. So's mine, by the way. And the other, the one you're talking about? That must be Heero. Heero Yuy, right?"

Wufei's eyes turned into slits. "I know very well the doctors had all been prepared to send us all out all those years ago, and they only waited because they wanted to design stronger Gundams. They did not need to wait for any of us to hit puberty."

Okay, _rude_. But Duo could handle that. "Yes, well, maybe I look good for my age. You sure do."

Wufei flushed red-hot. "That is not the point, Maxwell!" he said, and Duo was amazed by how wonderful it sounded. Amazed and a little troubled, because this was not his Wufei, and he was not in his world, and he was the clone in the real world now and he had to acknowledge that the people he'd known were not the people they'd been. Or something like that, anyway. He was still a bit confused on the subject. "You are not the pilot. That is physically impossible. You are too young." Duo opened his mouth to object, but when had Wufei ever let Duo talk when he was fed up with Duo's bullshit? "Yet you do know far more about us than you should. About me, about this organization, about Une, and about what's happening here, to be anything else. So tell me," he asked, and Duo actually backed away a half-step as Wufei stalked toward him, "are you a natural anomaly?"

Duo blinked. Then he blinked again, slowly pulling apart Wufei's question word by word until he could say with certainty that, yes, that was indeed what Wufei was asking. And then he whooped. "Holy shit, 'Fei, I should have known you would figure it out!"

"Figure what out?" Noin asked. "Would either of you mind at least acting as if I'm in the same damn room as you?"

"But that's impossible," Wufei said, as if he hadn't been the one to bring it up. "The very fabric of time denies incongruity. Anomalies like yourself would be rent from – and that doesn't even explain the mode of travel. We haven't found a way to travel reliably even through time, let alone through the strings of universes!"

Duo shrugged, not sure why universes were, in Wufei's mind, strings, but fairly positive it had something to do with string theory, which Duo had never, not once, cared about. "Blame the doctors. It was their time machine."

Noin guffawed. Wufei, on the other hand, seemed to take a deep breath. "The doctors," he said, his voice quiet. He backed down from the antagonistic approach and actually put a finger to his chin. "If anyone could make such a device, it would be them." The man actually spoke of them fondly, and not as if they'd been complete pains in their asses. Well, maybe Wufei's doctor had been like Duo's, and not like Heero's. Because no, really, fuck that guy. "But you said time machine? You aren't from our past."

"No. Another dimension, like you said. And yes, the imbalance in the dimension is trying to get rid of me. Give it another few days, maybe a week or two."

Wufei grimaced. His hand – and gaze – dropped. "My apologies."

Duo nearly clapped a hand on the man's shoulder before remembering that, no, this really was not his Wufei. Even though it really kind of was. "No problem. Seriously." He waved Wufei's reaction away. Then paused. "Um, what happened to Jason?"

Wufei shook his head. Duo watched a very familiar smirk slip up the man's lips. "I sent him away when I arrived. Not very astute, Maxwell."

"Eh. I had other things on my mind." But wow, could that kid move stealthily when he had to. Duo was impressed. How often did he get sent in for the covert ops missions? Probably regularly. Duo wondered where he'd been abandoned. Was he from earth or the colonies? It was so nice to not know, and for the not knowing to be normal.

Then again, it really was something to worry about. Duo was damn good at stealth, too, good enough that he should have been aware of Jason's movements. So either Jason was a stealth god or...

Or Duo was losing it. He touched the ring on his finger with his thumb. "I have to go see him if he's here, 'Fei. I need to find all of you. I – I don't know about you, but the others, the other me and Quatre? They both have suffered from not meeting everyone. And I think maybe you're missing something, too."

Wufei cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Missing something, am I?"

Duo nodded, trying for serious. "You often called us comrades. Once, you said we were blood brothers. You said the blood we shed on the battlefield was the same."

It had been a very poignant moment, and one Duo couldn't ever forget. Wufei, a bloody gash on his forehead, Duo, panting and trembling from running countless miles for several hours, both of them tired and drained and fighting, still, and Wufei clapping Duo on the shoulder after he made a snarky remark he couldn't half recall, dropping those little verbal bombshells on the ground between them. How much Duo had demanded they both survive that battle. How devastated he was that Wufei and Sally had both been lost to him on the same day.

Wufei's face got serious, too, and he no longer looked like he was only partly accepting Duo's story. "And you say this man – Yuy – is a part of this?" Duo nodded. Wufei actually shook his head. "There must have been quite a few changes in our histories, then."

Duo nodded. Then he shook his head. Then he shrugged and just waved the words away. "Whatever. Even if we're all different, that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try. Is Heero with Relena? He usually is – was, I mean; the man always watched out for her. Is he her bodyguard or something?"

Wufei snorted. "Not hardly. He stays in a small hotel off the edge of Sanc. No one talks to him. I only know him because I've been called out there a few times to..." He took a careful breath. "To stop him."

Duo shook his head, a grin plastered like paste on his face. "Stop him?" he repeated, because curiosity was a horrible, horrible beast.

"He loses control sometimes. Attacks. Fights as if fighting ghosts, or perhaps because he doesn't know how to stop."

And just like that, Duo hurt for him. "I have to find him," he said again. "I knew it; Heero never had that problem before." Not since the war ended. Or even before that – not since the pilots had all grouped together.

"We have other problems," Noin said, but Duo headed to the door.

"Where's the hotel?"

"He will not react well to seeing you." And with a very loud and familiar sigh, Wufei followed him. "I'll go with you. It would be ill advised to lose the mediator," he said as explanation. "But we must hurry. We don't have much time, and I must reach the embassy no later than five o'clock."

Duo checked his watch. Oh, they had nearly four hours. They would be fine. Hopefully. Possibly. Most likely. If he was lucky. "I have to find him. If he's gone so far off the deep end that he's picking fights with people..." The last time he'd been like that, the colonies had turned on them and they'd all been left adrift. Hell, Quatre had lost his damn mind and gone around killing people.

"And you think doing this is going to help us defeat Osiris?"

Best not to tell him that defeating Osiris was pretty much in the bag, and everything Duo was doing was just because he didn't have the time to dick around. "Look, if Heero's going to be fighting Osiris, it would probably be for the best if he knew there were others coming to help out, right? At the very least."

Wufei grunted. He pulled out his phone.

"Hey, keep the number on there in your mind. Whenever you need something, or if you need to plan something, get in touch with them. Whatever reservations anyone has, they're willing to put them on hold until everything's taken care of. And afterward..." They reached the damn elevators, and Duo just wanted to smack Une for being so melodramatic as to put her damn office on the opposite end. They waited a tense few seconds for the stupid thing to arrive – and this time Duo realized they didn't have to hit any up or down button; the thing started coming to them the instant they stood in front of it. When it arrived, Duo entered the elevator and slammed the button, then remembered the damn voice command thing again. He growled. "Afterward, maybe keep in touch with them, anyway?" Duo leaned against the banister and wished Wufei wasn't clever enough to catch just how fully he sagged. "Even if you don't get the blood brothers thing, having each other as allies couldn't hurt."

Wufei was silent for quite a while, and Duo took the opportunity to just breathe. Please, please, just wait a while, he thought to his body. Duo heard the low tone of a phone ringing and looked up. Wufei was calling someone. The other him?

"Sally," he said, and Duo blinked at the informal address. Then his jaw dropped as Wufei gave a soft little smile. "Yes, he's the real thing. You were right." A pause, and Duo felt himself almost startled by the look of the Wufei in front of him. He was, with that softness, absolutely beautiful. Duo had never thought Wufei beautiful before. Handsome, fierce, but never beautiful. This was like looking at what-might-have-beens. He thought he might even be looking at a Wufei who actually _hadn't_ been a Gundam pilot, and he realized Wufei had never actually admitted it. He opened his mouth to ask, but stopped when Wufei smiled again. "Yes. He wants to see Yuy." Duo very easily heard Sally's reaction to that. "Yes, I'm going with him. We'll be careful, Sally."

like Heero was a live explosive. Maybe he was. Maybe Heero had slipped off that deep end he'd seemed to be dipping his toes into when they'd first met. Duo hoped not. He really wanted Heero to be... well, Heero.

He twisted the ring on his finger again. Honestly, a horrible, horrible part of him wanted to substitute this Heero for the other one. The one he'd known. Even though he knew it was impossible, that it wouldn't be quite the same Heero he'd fallen in love with, still he hoped. Because he really, really wanted to see Heero again.

Well, best to dash those hopes upon the rocks of reality, so to speak. And the only way to do that would be to see the man himself.

Wufei hung up and gave Duo another look. "You wanted to ask me something?"

Wufei, actually volunteering to listen to Duo? "So, you are actually a Gundam pilot here, right?"

The man chuckled. "I am."

It didn't fit. Well, Duo should have known it wouldn't fit; nothing seemed to fit in this world. Was it appropriate to ask Wufei why he was so... mellow? Was mellow even an adjective that could be used to describe Wufei? And why was tight-ass Wufei mellow when sweet Quatre was completely destroyed? How was that even possible? What kind of world would create something like that?

The elevator dinged, and Duo forced himself to stand upright.

Whatever work they had waiting for them, neither Sally nor Jason seemed quite ready to return to it. Both waited just outside the elevator. Jason at least tried for inconspicuousness, but Sally just charged right up to them, looking first Wufei up and down, then Duo. She stuck a finger in his face. "You."

Duo blinked. "Me?"

"You're going to see that loose cannon?"

Heero? Loose cannon? Duo's mouth flapped open like a curtain. "I... yes?"

She looked him up and down again. "You won't last a minute."

Well. Not that it wasn't true, but seriously, was there a better way to emasculate a man? "Why, thank you, milady," he drawled, finding himself once more in that awkward almost-familiar stranger stage of his acquaintance with someone here. He didn't know if he should back off and give the woman some time to get to know him – as if they had the time for that – or if he should just keep on keeping on.

Well, who cared? Duo had pissed people off before. It would just be awkward if he didn't do it here at least once. "So can either of you tell me what happened here? With you?" he said, pointing to Wufei. "Where's you put that stick you always had up your ass?"

Wufei looked startled, and there it was – the formation of the infamous Chang anger. But then Sally burst out laughing. "Oh! It's been gone for a while now. Ever since we started dating." And this time, as Sally covered her mouth in an ineffectual attempt to stifle her loud laugh, he saw the glitter of an engagement ring.

 _Holy shit_.

Duo held up his hand. He couldn't take much more of it all. His head spun. Would this have been Wufei if he'd just been given more time with Sally? Would this have been the result? It was something he didn't want to think about, because it _hurt_. The loss was even worse when he thought about the futures lost. Wufei could have had this. After the destruction of his home, he'd struggled to find a sense of purpose, of belonging. To think he could have found both here, with Preventers. With Sally.

He beamed the two of them a smile. "Congratulations." Usually, he would have cracked a joke about Sally being saddled with Wufei, but he let it slide. They really didn't know each other that well, and he wanted them to know how glad he really was. "Really, this is great. At least something good's come of all this change."

Sally's brows furrowed, though she smiled at the compliment. Wufei just watched him, and he figured he would have to answer the usual questions in a minute.

Jason came up then, saving Duo from anything more awkward than trying to congratulate strangers on an engagement he'd joked about them needing to get for years. "Where are you headed? The embassy? Or Sanc?"

"Sanc first," Duo said, "but not to fight. Not yet."

Jason nodded. "I'm to go to the embassy. A few people will remain here, to protect Preventers, if it's attacked." It almost certainly would be, and Duo was glad Jason wasn't going to be there, because, unless they managed to find Trowa, they might have to leave Preventers HQ to any mobile suits that might be sent to it. "Is there anyone I should look out for?"

"A slightly taller, more scarred, much more obnoxious version of myself," he said, and waved Jason off as he hurried to the door. Nothing like being reminded of the battles already started to remember just how little time he had. He had to find Heero, then Trowa, wherever he may be, and this Osiris fucker wasn't giving him the chance. He rubbed his chest. He also didn't think he'd be able to walk around unimpeded for much longer, and that would just suck.

"'Version of yourself'? You have a brother?" Jason asked.

"No, not really. Oh, but call him Senior. He's really picky about that." Duo flashed the man a short grin. "I gotta go. If you see him, tell him Duo sent you. He'll give you better work during this than these guys."

Jason looked a little confused, but he nodded. Wufei caught up with him, Sally close on his heels. They left like a little procession, some follow the leader thing. Duo turned to Wufei. "I take it you've got a car?"

"Of course I have a car."

"Sweet. We'll take it; Heero would most likely recognize it. It wouldn't put him off so much to have someone he knows coming up to him." Obviously, or why else cart Wufei around? Unless the man actually thought Duo needed protection, which, in any circumstance other than going and picking a potential fight with Heero, would be exceedingly insulting. But Wufei didn't argue, just turned to Sally and quirked his head in Duo's direction, a blatant 'I have to go with him; I'll see you later' gesture that made Duo's gut clench. Wufei hadn't made those moves in his dimension; he'd never had occasion to with Sally by the time they got that close; she was going everywhere with them, and then she got sick, and Wufei didn't leave her side very often. And not at all, there at the end.

And thank goodness, but Duo just realized that Wufei had loved Sally in both dimensions, and was that normal, or was the other-him-loves-Hilde thing normal? Not that it mattered; Duo had no reason to worry about it one way or the other. It had taken him and the other Heero months, over a year, to even admit there might be an attraction between them. He'd be long dead before they would ever get anywhere.

As if they would get anywhere now; within two weeks, he'd be dead, and Heero would still be stuck in that 'shove him away' phase.

Yup. Well. Maybe. He had to remember that this was not his Heero, but, oh, it was hard, with Wufei and Sally giving each other a simple nod in parting – they _had_ done that before, several times – and Wufei jogging up to Duo, wearing that old weary look on his face, as if he was being dragged along completely against his will, forced to put up with Duo once again. It was all too familiar to be brand new. And yet Wufei had never paused beside Sally for that long, and Sally had never given Wufei that 'you'd better come back safe' look, and... and it was all different, even though it was the same, and once again, Duo felt his brain breaking with the effort of keeping everything straight.

He rubbed his chest as they made their way through the Preventer parking lot. Duo was unsurprised to see Wufei's car was a sleek black piece, the only one in the parking lot that looked brand spanking new. Trust little OCD 'Fei for that one.

Wufei unlocked the thing, and Duo nearly fell into it, barely pulling the door closed before something wracked up his arm and down his spine, shooting off every single axon along his nerves as it did. He arched his body a bit, in too much pain to want to move, and finally slumped as it passed. Wufei, the door to the driver's side still open, watched from beside him, his face impassive. When Duo finally calmed, panting a bit despite himself, he spoke. "Perhaps less than a week," the man said quietly.

Duo scrubbed his face. "Yeah," he said. The whatever-it-was – like some sort of eel slithering through his nerves, stretching the passage almost too wide – snaked its way up his arms and down his back, then up to his neck. It cued the newest throbbing migraine. "Probably."

Only a few more days. The embassy and the princess would both be attacked by tonight or tomorrow. That left him, what? Two more days? Three? The battle would last longer than that. He huffed. He wanted to help fight, but could he? If he started failing in the middle of a battle, he would become a liability. He would get anyone depending on him, or trying to help him, killed. He couldn't let that happen. His death had been inevitable before he'd even come to this dimension. Dragging others down with him would be... would be blasphemy against what he and his fellow pilots had stood for.

But trying to find Trowa in all that fighting would be like running through some no-man's land to grab a stuffed animal for a kid. And leaving this place would mean leaving those four idiots to sort out this whole camaraderie thing on their own, and considering their stellar work history thus far, he was going to hang out a big, fat 'no' sign on that idea.

He would just have to try to find Trowa from where he was. How hard could it be? He just had to find the circus. Somehow. If Mr. Clown Boy hadn't already left it.

Wufei started the car up, thank goodness, so Duo didn't have to beg the man to get on with it. He wondered how it looked – some random man jumping into your life, telling you to join up with others you never bothered getting to know before, telling you how great the friendship would be – could be – had been? And then don't forget that this particular person was younger than you, had somehow fought in the same war as you despite the time incongruencies, and, oh, yeah – was slowly breaking apart atom by atom and dying.

Yeah, that might be a bit confusing. A little, tiny bit earth shattering.

But then again, Wufei seemed to be taking it rather well. That was nice, because Heero would almost certainly not.

The feel of that eel multiplied as if the thing was giving birth, and the frisson left him tense, teeth gritted, as Wufei left the Preventers parking lot and headed out. The feel jolted each nerve ending. The sensation split, for an instant, into pain, making his arm jerk, then his legs and back. He hissed. Wufei cast Duo a glance. "Are you all right?"

A dumb question, but Duo grinned for it, because if anyone would make some stupid understated query, it would be Wufei. "Yeah," he said. "Well, you know. Not enough to want to stop."

Wufei's hands clenched and unclenched around the wheel as he drove. "You believe this worth dying for? Worth spending your last days achieving?"

Duo tried to shrug, but that squeezed the little baby eels too tight, so he decided not to. "Maybe not for you? Maybe just selfishly. Maybe I just want to see you all. I don't really know. Things here are really confusing. You and Sally, which is the same as in my world, only further along here than there. The two of you had only barely started acknowledging your feelings for each other. And Quatre, who's all kinds of fucked up over here, when he was the calmest, most rational, friendliest guy in the system in mine. And Heero, who's way more out of control over here than his worst times over in mine, if the way you guys are all acting is accurate. And then there's the other me, who's actually in love with someone I was never in love with." He sighed, and caught Wufei watching him out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone. And then at other times I feel like I'm with my old friends again. It's like I'm being split apart – in more ways than just, you know. Physically." He made to move his arm and winced, finally going silent again.

Wufei was silent for a time, contemplating the road ahead like one might a treasure map. Duo stewed in eely silence and stared straight ahead, endeavoring to not move so much as a muscle. The effort was so great, it actually tensed him up and made him twitch. And that hurt so much he then endeavored to instead ignore the discomforting pain for fear of making it all worse.

"I cannot imagine," Wufei said, sounding as if he'd somehow failed some sort of test. Duo didn't bother turning his head or lifting a brow; even if he felt well enough to do so, he thought he recognized the tone of voice Wufei used when he felt too ashamed to make eye contact. "Coming to a new world, only to find oneself dying. Losing friends, only to see their echoes in the men around you."

 _Echoes_. Duo sighed as the word settled into place in his mind. It was perfect.

"Yeah." Duo chanced a slight shift. It hurt, zinged all the way up and down his body, but he managed to turn a little more toward Wufei. He'd been right; the man wasn't turned to him at all. But Duo's move at least made them seem less like strangers in a damn taxi cab. "I think I might've said it before, man, but I'm really happy for you."

Wufei actually shifted in his seat. And then he cleared his throat. If they were the old them – if Wufei was the Wufei Duo had known – Duo would never have let him live the show of emotional constipation down. "Thank you."

Duo nodded very, very slightly and tried to relax as the eels grew in size and pressed their suddenly spiky flesh into his skin. There was nothing more to say with Wufei, and he was running out of time.

He had to get to Heero.

* * *

When Wufei finally stopped the car, it took a few moments for Duo to believe it. Not only had Wufei stopped a mere fifteen minutes after having started, he also pulled up in a run-down, still-being-reconstructed piece of the Sanq city.

Well, to be frank, the place was a dilapidated wreck.

Duo stared. And stared some more, because the eels hadn't left. He was getting the sinking feeling that they weren't going to.

Brown. Brown, he decided, and nodded slightly to himself as he forced himself to move. The discomfort morphed and spread into a long, crunching line of pain, like crinkling foam. He managed to get out of the car under his own weight, but propped himself against the hood as his entire body shook from the effort. He'd thought maybe the car window had somehow tinted his vision, but no. Everything really was a different shade of brown. The dirt road? Tannish-brown. The buildings? Cream-brown. The roofs? Dark brown. The dead grass? Gray-brown.

Ugh. How the hell did Heero do it?

Wufei came around the car, looking Duo up and down and back up, his face furrowing slightly as he did. Duo managed a little grin. "Hey. He lives here?"

"I don't know that 'lives' is the proper term." But Wufei looked over to one of the poor, depressed little buildings – the one right in front of them, obviously better cared for than the rest simply because it didn't have large holes in its roof – and nodded. "But yes, he stays here. I'm sure he keeps his Gundam nearby. I've seen it once."

Once. Just once? And when? Why? But Duo didn't ask those questions, because they weren't what mattered at the moment. If Heero was here, then he most certainly knew of their arrival. Duo could almost feel the prickling sensation of those eyes upon him. It actually made him shudder. "Okay. So he's here. What does he do?"

"Keep to himself, if he knows what's good for him," Wufei muttered, and Duo just stood blinking for a moment.

So. No love lost there, then.

Duo looked back to Heero's building. He wouldn't be in it. As soon as Wufei's car pulled up around the building, Heero would have been out. Ready to kill them? He really hoped not. He didn't think he was in much shape to fight.

Duo sensed it like a lost limb, and he ducked and rolled before giving a single thought to the slimy things slithering through his veins. He cried out, nearly tumbling stupidly to the ground as his veins nearly seemed to burst. He looked behind him to find Wufei on the ground, too, only with over a hundred fifty pounds of werecat on top of him.

"Heero!" Duo said, and got the sudden, full-force effect of that glare. He froze. He hadn't seen Heero like that since he'd had a gun trained on an innocent blonde. "Don't kill Wufei; he's just here because I asked him to bring me."

And there was the gun. Duo hadn't blinked this time. He was certain that hand had slipped into the back of those tight spandex shorts. Which meant... cock gun? Ass sheath? Duo's eyes nearly crossed. "Who are you?"

"Name's Duo Maxwell." He raised his hands in a form of surrender, even though it meant pulling those damn veins tight again. He had his bone knife up his sleeve. Could he throw quickly enough, accurately enough, to keep himself alive? Probably not, unless the Heero of this dimension somehow sucked so much more than the one he'd known. "I run and I hide, but I never tell a lie." He quirked a grin. "It's my motto."

Heero pulled on the trigger. Wufei tensed.

"Don't! We're here to help you stop Sloan. Don't shoot us until that's done, at least."

Heero glared so hard, Duo couldn't see the man's heart inside those deep eyes of his. Duo couldn't believe how very dark they were. But at least Heero put down his gun.

"Good. Great. Thanks. Um..." He looked down at Wufei. Wufei's black eyes were glittering like gunsmoke up at Heero. Heero still had him on the ground, his legs pinned beneath Heero's and one hand just south of Wufei's neck. "Could you maybe get off of Wufei?" Another dark glare. "Or not. Okay, that's fine. He's comfortable down there." Wufei snarled. "Okay! We'll talk out here, then, shall we?"

Heero raised that gun of his all over again. "The attack has already started. You're in my way."

This was Heero from that very first time. The psycho Heero who had shot at Duo and, in seeing the battle might take too long, had decided to jump onto torpedoes and launch them. The same one who ripped his hand free of leather bindings and jumped off a cliff to die, just so that he couldn't be tortured into giving away information. The Heero who didn't know Duo, who ignored him and belittled him. His Heero truly was gone, and it stung, stung so much more than the wounds and slimy eels and shredded biology. Duo huffed a tight breath. His lungs were starting to seize up again. "We aren't here to get in your way, but to coordinate. You'll want to protect Relena, right? That's fine." Heero almost seemed to jolt at that. "I know you'll protect her just fine. But we have allies. Someone can go with you while another watches over the Embassy and another the Preventers."

Heero merely watched him, nearly unblinking. Duo's skin crawled. He shivered. "I'm not your enemy, Heero. I swear it. We're all Gundam pilots."

He cocked that damn trigger again. "You're not a Gundam pilot."

"I am. Just not from here. Look, we can talk about it later."

"I know the Gundam pilots. You are not one of them."

Of all the damn people to actually look up the other freakin' pilots! "Then you should know I look exactly like one of them! Jesus, you never change, you know that?"

Heero stilled again, looking Duo up and down. Wufei made to move out from underneath Heero. Heero turned his gun on the man. Like a switch had been thrown, Wufei shoved Heero's hand away and flipped Heero onto his back. Heero struck Wufei's chin with the heel of his palm and jumped up, pulling his gun with him. Wufei cursed and got to his feet. "Yuy, put the gun away, or I will be forced to take you into custody."

"You won't."

"Even with this disaster in the works, Yuy, do not doubt my conviction."

"I don't. But you'll fail."

"Oh-kay! Enough of that, then, huh?" And Duo stepped between the two, certain he was going to get a bullet somewhere. "How's about we talk like rational human beings for a second? Truce. Alliance. Yeah?"

The war may have been over for five years in this dimension, but everything about Heero – his tense stance, his grim countenance, his dead, almost aggrieved gaze – said he was still fighting in one. "We don't really have time to go over all of this, but the basics can do us, right? We want to help."

Heero slid his gaze to Wufei.

"Yes, even him. Or else he wouldn't have come. You know Wufei enough for that, right? He's honest. Bluntly honest."

This time both men slid their gazes to Duo.

And Heero once more lowered his gun.

"Great! Thank you."

Gun. Back up. And this time Heero pulled the trigger. With a short, strangled shout, Duo jumped to the ground. Pain seared all up and down his body. The weird eel things finally broke free. His chest froze. He coughed, and all his breath was gone. "Jesus, Heero!" Heero never would have gone so far! What the hell was wrong with him?

"Yuy!" And before Duo could get himself back up, Wufei engaged Heero in battle. It was the Maremaia uprising all over again, only a little bit reversed. But when Duo tried to stand, he found his shoulders and legs in agony, like he'd broken bones. He coughed again. Fucking hell, _ow_. He scrunched his fingers through the dirt on the damn road and struggled to get up. They didn't have time for whatever bullshit was bouncing around Heero's insane head.

He looked at his shoulders as well as he could, twisting his back into painful contortions. Livid splotches of blue and red dotted up and down his skin. Well, shit. His blood vessels had actually burst. Those would be sensitive probably until he died. And would leave very colorful markings in about an hour.

"Stop it, both of you," Duo said, struggling once more to his feet, but apparently neither of the idiots could hear him over the sound of their massive ego. Duo watched them block one another's blows for an instant, gratified that, though Heero certainly wasn't pulling his punches, he at least seemed to have holstered his gun. Cock gun? Ass sheath? "Hey!" he tried again. Still nothing. For the love of... He reached for his ankle gun and aimed it at the both of them. "I swear to the god of death himself, I will shoot the both of you if you don't quit it!"

Wufei merely sighed, but Heero _moved_. It was like seeing him jump for those torpedoes all over again; the man was too fast to shoot. Duo didn't even try, because he knew exactly how Heero would respond to it. He did, however, skip back, shooting the ground as Heero came forward. He tried to suck in a breath. His lungs seemed to trip over themselves, but they allowed him a short gasp. Adrenaline, coming to his rescue?

The short lapse of attention quickened the inevitable, and Heero's arm snaked around his already abused shoulders and slammed him to the ground. Duo gasped as his small breath of air left him. By the time he managed to see straight, Heero was glaring down from just inches away. Thank goodness Duo had already lost his breath; Heero would have noticed, otherwise, how quickly his breath would have left him then. "Hi," Duo said, nearly wheezing it out. Heero looked him up and down. One of those glorious hands was on Duo's throat. One good squeeze and Duo would have been in trouble – if he hadn't already lost his damn air. Heero seemed confused by it. He didn't choke him.

"Step away from him."

Heero twisted around, blocking Duo's view. But Duo didn't need to see; he was certain Wufei had pulled his damn gun on the man. This was getting so ridiculous it could be a scene from a damn soap opera. "Let's talk."

He didn't have any more air to speak with, but his words brought Heero's attention back around, anyway. Apparently he'd dismissed Wufei's threat. A foolish person might say it was because of sentiment. Duo knew it was because Heero would just use Duo as his meat shield if he had to. "Hn."

That was his 'I'm reluctantly listening' hn. Duo grinned at it. It took him a few tries, what with his lungs not working properly, but he managed to get a small gasp in and say, "alliance."

Heero glared down at him.

"Truce?"

"Get away from him. I will not ask again."

Wufei was going to get him killed. Heero tensed above him, ready to throw Duo into the line of fire. Duo needed to get some more damn air before the testosterone got too thick. His limbs quivered as he fought against Shinigami's curse. Heero watched. It was as cold and assessing as the day Duo had busted into the Alliance hospital.

Heero picked up Duo's left hand. "What is this?"

Duo opened his mouth, fully prepared to retort with a lesson on human anatomy, when he saw the ring on his middle finger. His mouth slid closed. "A ring," he said, more a movement of lips than words. But then again, Heero had always been able to read lips. "You're wasting time."

Heero's lips pulled back in a snarl. It was the most emotion Duo had seen outside of those damn glares.

But he let Duo go and stood up.

Of course, Duo didn't go anywhere. Because he couldn't breathe. So he just lay there and waved vaguely in Wufei's direction. His shoulders stung, but at least the eels seemed to have left. Scurried out through the holes in his veins, maybe. Wouldn't that be convenient. And gross.

"We'll leave you with the vice minister," Wufei said, most likely in immediate appeasement. Duo didn't think Wufei had yet put his gun down. "I will protect Preventers HQ, and come here once all mobile suits have been dispatched. I believe there are two already at the embassy." Duo knew Wufei was looking at Duo.

"One should come here. The Maguanacs can help Quatre over at the embassy, so the other me should come here," Duo mouthed, hoping either Wufei could read lips or Heero could relay the damn message. It was getting very difficult to see straight. Dammit; not again.

Thankfully, it seemed Wufei wasn't without his skills. "I'll call them, then, shall I?" But Duo knew Wufei wasn't really asking him. He was having a standoff with Heero. A very annoying standoff.

A shrill ring stopped the standoff from becoming anything more. With a curse, Wufei snatched up the sound's perpetrator – his phone – and snapped, "what?"

There was no point going for stealth when Heero already had him in his sights (or ever, really, when it came to Heero), so he didn't bother being sneaky about trying to sit up. Not that it would have worked. He was shaking, feverish, and unable to freaking breathe, so there wasn't going to be any blending into the shadows or anything. A two-bit mugger could take him down at the moment.

Heero turned until he could watch Duo with one eye. Duo couldn't quite put his finger on just what was different about him, but it seemed so deep. Someone who didn't know every single twitch of the Heero Facial Expressions Mental Pamphlet might not have recognized much of a difference, but it seemed like Heero was... blacker. Darker. There had always been shadows in Heero's eyes, but now it seemed more like an eclipse. Duo searched them until, for the first time in Duo's life, he watched Heero turn away. Heero conceding defeat? Duo's death was near. Well, nearer.

By the time Duo managed to get himself sitting up and his breath whistling in through clenched teeth, Wufei had finished listening to whoever was on the other end and hung up his phone. "They're coming. Merely an hour or so away." Heero was already moving, heading toward the building with the patched roof. "I must return to Preventers. Yuy will take Sanc." But Heero was already inside the building. "You." And Wufei pointed at Duo. Duo blinked. "You must head to the port. Apparently a man named Howard is coming to see you. He'll be bringing your Gundam."

Duo's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I know you can't fight well," Wufei said. "But the other you is apparently going to be late, and this Howard was already on his way in. He merely adjusted his course. By the time the other you arrives here, the battle could well be over. Yuy may need backup."

Almost, Duo snorted. The day Heero needed backup was the day the world collapsed in on itself. But he'd provided Heero backup countless times, whether the man had needed it or not, and maybe if he helped, he could find out just what it was that made Heero so... black.

Duo nodded. "I'll take care of it," he mouthed. Wufei didn't look too sure, but then again, Duo still couldn't talk. Also, the world was starting to spin a bit. Also, it was going a bit black at the edges.

Duo rolled onto his side as Wufei hurried back to his car. No doubt, Heero was already heading toward his Gundam. Which meant he was about to disappear for a moment or eight while he got the thing up and running, and then he would come busting through, heedless of anything or anyone else, and head toward Sanc. Duo needed to at the very least get to where Heero was headed. There wouldn't be much he would be able to do Gundam-less and dying, but he could still take out a few enemies, granted he could hide in the shadows before they arrived.

Wufei had said he should head to the port, but he had no way of knowing how to start up the damn Gundam. These guys seemed to forget that Duo hadn't used the Gundams they had. He didn't know them. AI? What the hell was that? Could he freaking talk to the thing? Would it take over his mind like the Zero system he knew? He could always head to the damn port via one of the princess' cars if he had to, but there was no way he was going to rely on the faulty assumption that he could just waltz into the cockpit and wake the Gundam up or something. (Was there some sort of Gundam alarm clock? Rebooting system? What?)

Of course, then the blackness encroaching on his vision became darker, darker, and far too solid, and the shivering in him crescendoed until, with a ringing echo, it fell silent.

* * *

An explosion woke him.

Duo woke to pain all up and down his arms and legs, like he'd been tortured in another Oz cell. It reminded him horribly of the few moments before he'd opened his eyes and found himself in a subway station quite different than the one he'd entered. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see the remains of his shower stall TARDIS. Instead he faced a brown ground, morphing into a short length of brown grass and bumping up against a wall of tan that stretched into a building. A sad, nearly-wrecked building. So much brown. He thought of messy brown hair and forced himself to his feet. Gods, his shoulders and calves were killing him. Stupid Heero. Stupid dimension. Stupid uprising.

Something flew over his head. A mobile suit.

He stared up, only then becoming aware of how brightly lit the sky was. Not from sunlight, but from deep, bright shocks of gunfire and explosions. Something made the ground quake beneath his feet. He kept his balance and twisted his head toward the Sanc building. He couldn't see it; it was too far away. But he heard the sound of engines revving, of a familiar beam rifle. Heero was fighting. The battle had started without him.

Duo ran for the port.

* * *

Though the ground still rumbled and the world exploded above him once in a while, it was like distant thunder after only a bit of running. The battle pinpointed around the princess' abode, and, as he neared, the Preventers building. Shit. And he'd given his phone to Wufei like an idiot, so he couldn't get in touch with anyone. Well, by now, Howard would most likely have arrived with 'Scythe. Duo was too late to set up a sort of ambush at the Sanc estate, which left him with no real means of fighting. He was short of breath just running to the damn port. It was pathetic. So he had to just suck it up and try his best to figure out how the hell to get an AI booted up. (Did it need booting up? Would it already be awake when he arrived? Would it squish him, thinking he was an imposter?)

Unless the other him had already arrived, in which case, he would have to turn right back to Sanc, if only to keep Heero from turning his damn beam rifle on Deathscythe.

The port was closed, unsurprisingly, and the guards stationed there were running around and shouting and pointing. They took one look at Duo and scowled. "You!" one shouted, and Duo just didn't have the patience to deal with it.

"Sorry, pal," he said, and ran right up to the man, chopping his neck. He caught the guy as he fell, preventing a horrible bruise (other than the one he'd have on his neck upon awakening), and hurried as others called out for him to stop. He took another one down before the rest pulled their guns on him. He dodged the first few bullets, his breath coming out in pants, his fingers shaking slightly as blackness encroached once more. He didn't have the time to fall unconscious, but it seemed his body was trying for it, anyway.

The port had about a dozen double doors, the building a wide stretch down the block. Duo focused on the two last guards standing between him and the nearest entrance. Both had their guns trained on him, and he didn't want to shoot them. That left dodging. Normally, he could try judging the angle of the bullet by the point of the muzzle. That was a bit harder with his vision fuzzing and the world tilting a bit more than it should. He grabbed for something – his knife, or maybe just something to grab to steady his balance – and one of the men fired. Duo lurched to the side, surprised himself when the bullet missed. The other shot, then, and Duo focused on getting his damn knife. To hell with not hurting these guys. He would just focus on not killing them. That was nice enough, right?

He didn't bother trying to do more than guess where the men might shoot at him. At least those farther off were wasting time either trying to get closer or calling in reinforcements. Duo took a single graze on an already-injured shoulder before he got his knife in hand and got close enough to throw with any hope of accuracy. The first shooter went down with a shout. His friend called his name, but sounds were fuzzy enough now that Duo couldn't decipher it. During the man's short instant of distraction, Duo got close, dropped to one knee, and swept his leg out. The man went down, his finger tightening on the trigger enough to loose a stray bullet into the air. Duo moved to stand to knock the man out and found his knee freezing beneath him. He rolled to the man's head and slammed it roughly against the asphalt. He took the man's gun, too, and retrieved his knife. "Back off!" Duo snapped, shooting another stray round as the encroaching guards. They stilled. Duo ran into the building while they fumbled.

There were more guards, of course, but Duo didn't slow down to give them any attention. He let them waste time with their required shouts of "stop!" and "freeze!" and made his way past the main lobby before they could start chasing after him. He shot behind him as he entered the first thin hallway, keeping them from getting close enough to pose a threat. He searched. Howard would leave a sign – right? His Howard would have. For Duo to know where to go, in case the two of them didn't meet up in time. But running all over the damn building trying to find it might end up getting him cornered. That left him going out to the docking space and hoping some sign might have been left there.

Or, he thought, seeing a scorch mark on the wall ahead of him, maybe someone had already run through here. Was that the reason for the extra security, and not the battles? He hadn't seen any evidence of fighting from the front entrance. Had someone gotten partway through the port before getting caught, or had they come in from another ship? Either way, it was most likely an enemy. Sloan? His file hadn't mentioned any real combat experience. One of his henchman? A group of them?

Duo managed another turn, following the marks as they trailed down to the right, the East Wing. Duo touched the scorch mark lightly as he passed, and was somehow unsurprised to see the soot staining his fingers. Someone shouted behind him, and he wasted another bullet keeping them back. Whoever had passed through here, it had only been a short while ago.

The halls thinned even more, and an alarm trilled as he passed the empty inspection line for travelers and passed through one of the metal detectors. The halls suddenly spread wide open when he reached the actual waiting areas. He found even more scorch marks inside, along with several holes where bullets had lodged themselves into the walls. It didn't take a genius to see the obvious track from where Duo stood to the port furthest in the back. Which would be the most obvious place to take something as large and conspicuous as a Gundam.

Duo upped his pace, even as the black dots sparked into a rainbow of colors and his gut clenched in warning. The last corridor leading to the ships on the port was wide enough for only two fat people. He shot behind him once, hoping to clear out anyone getting too close, and heard someone shout. He'd actually hit someone with his blind fire. What the heck. What a waste of good luck.

There were no scorch marks or bullet holes here, but there was a large stain of blood. Had security finally caught the person, or had the person taken down one of his or her pursuers?

The answer came a split second after he made it to the end of the walkway, before he even had a chance to look around. A slick, humming metallic whirr echoed along the empty bay, and as Duo looked down the end of the walkway to the steps that led to the docked ship, he found the bay not only open, but the ship's cargo hatch releasing. He didn't recognize the ship; it was as nondescript as they came, like the one he'd arrived in – but as soon as the hatch opened enough, a shadow shifted within that couldn't be anything other than Deathscythe. He launched himself down the steps, prepared for the hit of zero gravity that started him floating more toward the ship than the floor. Was Deathscythe on some sort of rampage, or was it looking for the other him? Could it even recognize such things? Maybe it was just killing off what it thought to be intruders. Or was it being hijacked by whoever had made it through security? Just what the hell did an AI mobile suit entail? Especially one outfitted with the godsforsaken Zero system.

Whatever it was, Deathscythe still turned to him, its green eyes flashing. Duo would have been overjoyed to see his buddy again if it weren't for the potential demonic possession performed by the Zero system. Or whoever might be inside.

But then the cockpit hatch opened up, and Duo saw the other him step out and wave before reaching out his hand for Duo to grab. "You're late!" the other him called.

Duo leveraged himself off Scythe's chest to more easily grab the other him's hand. He opened his mouth to explain the reason he was late and blinked. It seemed the pain had finally receded. Adrenaline hummed under his skin, muting it enough that the colorful-black sparks in his eyes disappeared, and he could finally hear without cotton balls stuffed in his ears. He grinned. "Yeah. You know me; grand entrances only."

The other him rolled his eyes and looked Duo up and down. Duo knew exactly when the other him caught sight of the bruises along the edges of his shoulders and arms, visible beyond the seams of his shirt. His lips thinned.

Then the other him receded into Deathscythe, sitting in a chair wholly different than Duo had ever seen. He hooked himself into the seat with two X-shaped buckles, dark black against the shining gray-black metal of the chair. Then he slid his hands into metallic gloves, his feet into metallic boots, and as he sat back, it was into a chair that conformed to his specific body type, curling in to his waist and spreading like some sort of cape over his shoulders and down his back. Something snapped slightly as he sat back, and he closed his eyes. "Sit as best you can behind the seat," he said, even though Duo was already moving to do so. He glared at the other him. Not that the asshole could see it, eyes oddly still closed as he revved up Scythe's engines. Somehow.

Duo squished himself behind the chair; there wasn't much room there, and Duo looked around as he got himself situated. It was strange; while he recognized, to the marrow of his bones, the feel of Deathscythe under his feet, the smell of oils and leather – though the seat had far less leather than he was accustomed – and the sound of gears shifting and whirring, he didn't understand anything else that he felt and saw and heard. Firstly, how did the other him even start Deathscythe up? As far as he'd been able to see, the other him had simply sat in Deathscythe, closed his eyes, and... and what? ESP'ed it awake? Did something with the gloves, or the boots, or maybe both the gloves and the boots? Hell, maybe it had something to do with the back of the chair looking like a freaking cape. Or maybe it just needed someone sitting in the seat? Maybe the Zero system had taken over the other him's body somehow, or...

Duo pressed tight against a translucent panel. It glowed with lights; he guessed breaking it open would reveal wires, or perhaps the AI itself? But no, that would be more closely guarded. Then again, the Zero system had been out in the middle of the cockpit for the world to see in Wing Zero... and there, above the paneling, was the emergency ration safe, even smaller than Duo remembered. First aid kit – a complete waste for him at this point – and a small bottle of water, and about three ration bars. A flashlight, usually, though there didn't seem to be spare room for one. Maybe a pen light? Or whatever this world's electronics made an equivalent. He would have opened it to check if the other him hadn't somehow launched Deathscythe into the sky. Without any noticeable buttons or switches in the entire cockpit. Anywhere. At all.

What had his buddy become? Some monster hybrid of some demon system. Like that show where a boy gets some zombie lady's organs transplanted in his and became half-zombie himself. Duo shuddered at the mental image of a zombie 'Scythe running around massacring people.

Of course, that probably wasn't the case. Maybe. Hopefully. And at least his pain had simmered down enough that he didn't feel like he was going to choke on himself and die. And now that the other him was entering the battle, Sanc was probably going to be just fine.

"Drop me off when we get near Sanc," he ordered, glaring up at the back of the strange chair. "I'm not sitting uselessly in here during a fight."

The other him didn't say anything, but Duo thought he saw the other him's lips thin, pulling his cheeks taut from the side. No matter. It wasn't safe for someone to be unlatched during a battle. If the other him wanted him safe, leaving him inside would be about the same as leaving him with all the guards in the spaceport. He would just have to find a way to not be some useless twit standing on the sidelines like some Civil War wife waiting for her husband to come home.

Though, who exactly would be his husband? Considering the man he'd loved was dead.

He felt a new pain then, and just like the curse, it took a long, long time to fade.


	5. Peace Repudiated

The curse still hadn't returned by the time the other him dropped Duo off just far enough away from Sanc as to not get shot at immediately upon disembarking. It left him free to enjoy the wonderful aches and pains from the previously burst blood vessels. Oh, joy. Mmm. Ow.

The battle already seemed to be in its ebbing stages; while a few mobile suits still flew, they sank low to the ground, keeping to the terrain to try to hide from Heero's Gundam. And Duo stared in fascination as it flew over him, heedless, for the moment, of the battle occurring just a block away. Wing – or Wing Zero? – looked like a descending angel, the wings Heero had placed on the Gundam in Duo's dimension unfurled, Wing's beam saber pulled like a sword before the diving machine. One of the mobile suits fell to Heero's sword thrust, and the other two scattered. The fight in the air was all but over; Heero had scared off whatever main troupe had pulled itself together. But still Duo saw Deathscythe as it entered the battlefield, chasing down the two fleeing target. One fell to the Buster Shield, and the other to Deathscythe's vulcans. Duo could almost feel the thrum of the blasts as phantom whispers up his arms, as if he was still piloting his old 'Scythe. The 'Scythe that wasn't some Frankenstein monster of Zero and Doctor Who mechanics and old Gundam schematics.

Finally, Duo let the battle above go. There was no point trying to pay more attention to it than ensuring those guns didn't fire down on him – and if he saw the trajectory coming, there wouldn't be much hope of dodging in time. He would just have to rely on the devil's luck – which, frankly, would be completely wasted on him at this point.

Trying to engage enemies head to head on the battlefield would do nothing but get him killed. And if not killed, then certainly protected, because he would be nothing but a liability. But he wasn't one to fight face-to-face, anyway. He was a freaking thief, after all. He lived for the shadows.

Besides, if he were anyone with any kind of brain, the battle above, the battles in other locations – they wouldn't matter. None of them did. He wasn't stupid enough to not understand what all of this was really about. And that, most likely, was why the other him had allowed him to get involved in this fight. Or maybe the other him thought he'd just suffered another fit, and that he was temporarily well? The other him wasn't aware of just how bad the last fit had been.

Whatever. Duo couldn't afford to waste time. Certainly Heero had figured it out, too, and was probably trying to take care of everything on his own, stuck in that 'only I can do this' mentality he'd had way back at the start of the war. So while Heero tried to end the life of every single enemy on the battlefield in record time, Duo would take care of the pink princess.

The one thing he'd always learned while on the streets, and the one lesson that had helped him more often than he could count during the war, was the knowledge that there were always ways around the world, ways others wouldn't even think about. Ways left unprotected simply because people didn't think they could be used as entrances. Way back when, it had been the air vents and the sewers. Sometimes, those even applied to these days. But for the pretty princess in her ivory tower, the ways were underground exits made by older generations and the balconies underneath her hedges. (Granted, that last one had been found before Duo and the other pilots had even gone to the place; a kidnapper had taken the path to get to the princess.) But the underground passages were only known to the princess, her family, and a few select guards.

Since no one else should have known, most likely only Duo and Heero knew, unless a couple other people in Preventers – namely Une, Noin, and Wufei – knew, as well. If her guards were worth squat, and if Une really was with her, they would be bunkered down in either the second or third secret exits, which were more heavily fortified.

And Zechs might be with them. But Duo had handled torture before, and he could do so again.

Even if he was nearly dead and about as good as fighting as a drunkard, it was still better to have a Gundam pilot by her side. Especially since he was fairly positive no one in this universe had yet found the fifth exit. Since he'd been the one to find it in his other universe.

The Sanc estate was four stories of pure ostentation, and all around it were primly trimmed hedges and immaculate lawns with grass as bright green as limes. Even though Duo was nowhere near the estate yet, and he had to travel slowly through the small alleys between stores bordering the large estate, he could picture the place clearly in his mind. Even discounting the minor changes he knew from the Relena from his dimension, the building would have ornate balustrades and thick roman-like columns within. The building was said to have been made to be a church once upon a yesteryear, and the balconies and stairwells attested to the grandeur of old.

The fighting around him thickened, until the sound echoed from every corner of his world. He concentrated on the sounds, frowned over the sound of someone gargling out their last scream. A knife to the lung, or shrapnel? If it was shrapnel, Duo needed to be careful. If it was a knife, Duo needed the weapon.

He hesitated before heading in the direction of the man's final wheeze. The enemy hadn't chosen a distinct pattern for themselves, or wore any military gear that would set them apart from any military of the old war. The patches denoting Oz or Specials or Alliance had been ripped off the faded green military jackets, and the men only distinguished themselves through their use of hats, either to recognize themselves apart from their enemies or to conceal their identities. If the former, then killing them would be simple enough. If not? Well, the question of why they would have to conceal themselves became a bit pertinent.

If the latter, then Duo might have to hurry.

The knife was still in the man, and the moron didn't seem too focused on getting it back. But while his fellows headed out, he stayed by the body. Duo finally looked down. And blanched. It was Paragon. He covered his mouth for a moment before his lips thinned. He didn't bother with stealth. Even half-dead, he could handle a coward who killed old men.

The man saw him coming, of course. He pulled out a gun. Duo didn't even tell his body what to do, he was so used to this situation. He slid down and to the left, toward the gun, as the man adjusted his aim. He swung his hand up just as the man focused the barrel of the gun on him, and with jarring chop along the man's wrist, hit the gun out of his grip. Using the same momentum, he grabbed the man's arm and yanked. Off-balance, the man stumbled to keep his feet, giving Duo more than enough time to stand straight and put the man in a headlock. It was a dangerous position if he ended up having a fit just then, but he wanted the man to have enough time to look down on Paragon's body and remember just what he'd done to deserve his end. Something screeched over his head as the man jerked in his hands; just fifty-some meters away, one of the mobile suits fell from the sky and crashed into the pavement. The rubble and smoke turned the sky to fog.

The man nearly got Duo off him when others came around the corner, their hats pulled low. Duo had to pull the man back into the alley and cover his mouth at once, lest his stupid choke-spit noises alerted his friends. They headed toward the estate, and Duo's eyes narrowed. Duo could see a line of Preventers one the ground in front of the estate, using the porch columns as cover, others using bags of sand, haphazardly placed around the front yard, as their cover, nearly lying on the ground to keep from poking their heads above the bags. The men heading for the front entrance used nearby bodies as shields, save for one, who had cunningly ripped off a car door to use as his shield.

Finally, the man in his arms stilled, and Duo waited another minute, until he was certain the man was no longer breathing, before dropping him to the ground and heading back out to the street to grab the knife in Paragon's chest. He didn't bother checking the man's pulse; no one survived that much blood loss.

The Preventers were handling the front end well enough, and Duo guessed the back was just as fortified. While he took out the man with the car door from behind, he left the rest for the Preventers to pick off and moved to the side.

Unsurprisingly, the windows were all boarded up, and Duo had no doubt that more Preventers waited on the first floor to snipe anyone who attempted to enter through any of them.

The street had almost cleared of soot and dust by the time Duo made it to the side of the estate. With it gone, he was once more in the thick of the fight, and he stuck close to the estate's shadows as he continued. He would have preferred a higher position, but what were the chances he could climb the edge of the building without alerting all of the Preventers here? And they wouldn't recognize him, because none of the pilots had bothered getting to know one another, and they hadn't bothered with Preventers. So ridiculously inconvenient; couldn't they have made things easier on him? He was dying, after all. You'd think they would be more courteous to the ill.

Strangely enough, while he had to stop crouched on the balls of his feet for a few minutes while three Preventers drove off five men, no one seemed to notice him. The area was coated in blood, dirt, and grime; some men passed through with it smeared all over their bodies, turning them nearly coal black. They slithered like snakes along the asphalt road, more camouflaged than the men in green. Duo watched each of them, until he saw a few of them stop moving; sniped into stillness. He kept himself motionless as a rock for several moments. Only when the five men were led off by the Preventers and Duo could be reasonably certain no sniper had caught his movements did Duo move on.

The entrances could be found in the oddest places, of course. Or perhaps that was the beauty of them, that they weren't stereotypical. There was no swinging bookcase or hidden door behind a tapestry or painting. One was a trap door in the floor, except it was like the ones in walls, where the stone layout pulled seamlessly out. That was the first one they'd found, as one of the maids had found what looked to be a small crack in one of the stones and had attempted to replace it. Needless to say, it had remained.

The second exit was through the second closet in Relena's bedroom. It was attached to a mirror, and could only be opened if one broke it and found the small touchpad underneath. The story as to how that one had been found had kept Duo laughing for weeks, and Heero rather unwilling to be around him.

The third and fourth had similar designs, so while Duo thought they both might have been found, they'd thought the second one was a dummy set up to fool people from the first, so perhaps the people in this dimension still thought the same. They were both false televisions. One was in the spare bedroom, and was so blatantly obvious it seemed inevitable, until you realized it didn't work. Hence the consideration that it was a dud. The other, slightly subtler one was the dining room, where the television actually _looked_ like a painting, until you turned it on. An unnecessary expense that probably did nothing more than wow one's dinner guests. And doubled as an escape hatch when you turned to channel 00. The one in the bathroom stayed on episode 00, which was why it was both obvious and considered a dud. Broken. Until you realized it had a channel 01 and a channel 001, and the latter was the opening to an escape hatch.

The fifth was the one Duo had found while growing increasingly bored playing bodyguard one day, before the Sanc estate got leveled by fighting and everything went to hell. He'd been traipsing around the back garden, minding his own business, maybe or maybe not playing around on the fountain, when he found with of the angels in the middle of the thing (because why not be ostentatious with your ridiculous amounts of money) had a glass eye. Thinking it might be a hidden camera from some paparazzi or something, he bent in and pulled it out. The entire fountain had split open like a freaking Indiana Jones crypt. It led to a deep, deep room, wide enough that Relena had ordered it turned into an emergency medical facility when the estate had first gotten attacked by White Fang.

What he'd found had actually been the exit. Duo was sure it was some sort of shelter for someone to hide in during some sort of shitstorm, and exit once they had the ability, or it was safe to do so. Inside the estate, the entrance was just inside the building, by the back porch. The keypad unlocked it, if one put in the correct password. And if the password hadn't been found and changed, it would be Relena's birthday. Duo presumed her parents, the long deceased Peacecrafts, had wanted the shelter to protect their children, specifically their daughter, from any harm. Duo hoped it hadn't been a sexist decision on their part.

Even though it was only just inside the door, literally nothing more than a tiny crevice of a space between the outside wall and the inside wall, it was a way to get inside without alerting any of the Preventers. If, of course, he could get to the fountain and open the thing up. The only good thing about it was how quietly it opened; if he timed it right, any gunfire or noise from the mobile suits above could cover up the sound completely.

Of course, first he would have to stop clinging to the side wall like a baby, tiptoe his way past the open garden, where he would stick out like a sore thumb, and open the fountain and climb down without any of the snipers, lookouts, or guards catching win of what he was doing.

Not so likely, after all.

Of course, he could just make a break for it and use the fountain as cover until he slid down, but that would put the Preventers on red alert. Not only would that mean he would have to wait like a bump on a log until they got tired of looking, but they would be so busy looking for him that they wouldn't pay close attention to what the actual enemies were doing. So while that would be a lot faster, for sure, it would be a complete waste for him.

He really, really wished he had his phone. If he had, he would have been able to get the other him on the line, and the man could have just shot at the ground and turned the backyard into another sooty wreck. That would have been perfect.

He looked up again. This time he could easily make out Heero's Wing; it flew just to the right of him, battling what looked to be the last few mobile suits in the air. The other him was helping, from a safe distance; Duo wondered how that initial meeting had gone. Probably not well. Definitely not well, considering the other him kept 'Scythe way out of range of Heero's weapons, even though it meant he jerked his Gundam all over the place whenever Heero turned his Wing. It would have been hilarious-looking if it hadn't been so ridiculously pathetic. He'd have to give Heero a talking to. Which, in this dimension, could mean he jumped into his grave rather than crawled.

He looked back to 'Scythe. How inconvenient. Even ignoring how sucky it was to see his old buddy and know that, just like everyone else, it wasn't really his friend he was looking at, there was the problem of not being able to just get into the damn Gundam for a second and blow up the ground himself.

Then 'Scythe turned to face him, and he wondered if maybe the other him had spotted him hunched against the estate wall. He waved shortly to the Gundam and pointed toward the grounds. Then he used his first fingers like horns, turned them into vulcans, and pantomimed shooting. He then made big explosion motions with his hands.

Deathscythe just kept staring at him. If the other him had seen him, he was apparently too busy laughing to respond.

Duo flipped him off. Just to be sure.

After a short moment – in which Duo imagined the other him laughing so hard he nearly choked – Deathscythe's vulcans flared. The dirt about thirty meters from the estate's back door burst into the air. Duo began running before the pounding of the earth even stopped.

Though Duo worried about how Heero would take the other him's supposed attack on the estate grounds (though really, Heero had probably seen and ignored him; that seemed about right), he didn't bother worrying about the other him. He needed to worry about himself.

While men almost certainly stood guard over the back door, Duo hadn't seen any on the grounds. They may have been hidden, but that left them just as blind as the men in the house, and that was all Duo needed to be able to get to the fountain without being shot at. The fountain was almost as he'd remembered it, save that one of the angels was missing its hand and the other, the one with the glass eye, had giant gouges in what had once been its chest. Through the deep cuts Duo could almost see the mechanism for the fountain. That wasn't good; it meant the damn shelter had most likely been found.

But whether it had been or not, the fountain opened up the instant he removed the glass eye, and he quickly shimmied himself inside the open space between the now separated two angels. The space was small, and Duo had to hurry to put the eye back inside the angel's sculptured skull and drop down the ladder to avoid getting squished. Without any light, the place was like space, only with gravity to make things hurt you more. He slid the rest of the way down the old metal ladder and touched down on the concrete flooring.

If the place had been found, then it could have been rearranged into anything. That meant he could bump into a million things on his way to the estate. And if he did that, someone might hear him.

But really, his main concern was time. How much longer before the next fit? And how long would it last? And what would it bring along with it? The eels? The pressing clamp around his heart? The rocks that filled his lungs instead of air? What all would he lose? How much longer until he simply tore apart to his very atoms and disappeared permanently?

The best he could do was traverse the area as if it hadn't been found, and go slowly enough that if he bumped into something, the worst that would happen was he banged himself up a bit, and didn't end up giving away anything.

The first steps was simple enough. Unless a person was a complete fool, they wouldn't put anything in the way of reaching the ladder. When he'd first come down here, the place had been little more than a dusty room filled with boxes of what had turned out to be foodstuffs and a few barrels of stale water. They'd all been shoved up against the walls, as if to prevent any accidents from occurring – or as if the place had been emptied, the the food and water left behind in the rush for other materials such as, say, medical supplies. Duo hadn't forgotten how the kingdom had originally fallen.

A picture pieces of furniture had been left behind, as well, and it was these Duo was most concerned about bumping into. There's been a bed, he remembered, though it had been weathered and slightly sagging, covered by sheets and so dusty that the sheets had been turned from beige to near-black. The pillows had been lost causes, but if Duo could grab one, they would make great silencers or gags. He wasted a short second waving his arms like a lunatic before simply proceeding slowly. Tight gatherings of atoms gave off their own feel. Duo couldn't remember the name of it, but like two opposite magnets, two solids' atoms would bounce off one another. Hence the reason a person could 'feel' a solid object nearby.

After about a minute of slow shuffling in the direction, he felt that 'about to hit the edge of the table' feeling, and he slow to about the equivalent of a caterpillar's crawl. There. Something. He touched it. A chair. Damn. Oh! But there was a cushion on it, beneath the sheet! Was it removable? Not without help. He pulled out his dagger and cut the thing off the chair. What? Like it was doing anyone any good down in some dank hole in the earth.

It was large, and a bit gangly, but it worked. He continued again toward where he remembered the other exit being.

The going was slow, slow enough that Duo feared taking _too_ long, but finally he reached another something that set off that inner proximity alert, and this time when he reached carefully out, he encountered a wall.

Well. He was a bit off on the exit, then. He inched to his right, still feeling along the cool stones, his fingers running over bumps and jagged edges of stone. The place obviously hadn't been found; when he finally found the ladder, it was in just as bad a state as he remembered. As he recalled, about two-thirds of the way up, the rusted ladder snapped. Back then, he'd let himself fall back to the ground, then had parkoured his way up the wall. While it was open on the bottom, the top had the inner wall of the house on the side of the ladder and, formed up as if from the very ceiling of the bunker, the outer wall behind it. It left such a tiny space in-between that a deep breath could nearly go unfinished.

He would have to forgo the ladder entirely. While he may very well be able to grab the ledge more easily this time, knowing that he _had_ to reach the top, instead of last time, when it didn't matter in the slightest, the racket from the falling ladder would be too great. He would not only give himself away, but put every single Preventer on red alert. Since he didn't feel like getting skewered the instant he opened the secret door, he would just have to take some more bruises.

Despite how gross it was and how likely he was to contract some sort of horrible dust disease, he put the cushion in his mouth, gripped it tight with his teeth, and took three careful steps back. Ugh. It tasted like mold.

The ladder led up a ledge less than two inches deep, stopping abruptly at the 'door' inside the building. While Duo could hold on to it with minimal fuss, climbing up was another bill entirely. It meant pulling one's foot up while there was still room, then putting one hand on each side and shimmying oneself up until he ended up having only the room to use his foot as his only means of pulling himself all the way up. The last time he'd done it, back when he hadn't had bruises and aches all over his body, it had left him groaning and his leg trembling slightly with the strain. It would suck even worse for him now.

And then when he got out? What were the chances there wouldn't be any Preventers within easy reach? And what were the chances they wouldn't react poorly? That was why he needed the cushion; even though it meant an even more difficult time getting up, he would need to keep the inevitable battle as quiet as possible.

Of course, that would leave him precisely up until the moment a check-in report was demanded by Lady Schizo, but hey, time was time.

If he were any kind of leader, he would not put all of his eggs in one basket, so to speak. The only mobile suits left in the good guys' hands were the Gundams, and those guys were known to be the best of the best. Preventers might have some nice soldiers, but they hadn't been trained since infancy to survive, no matter the cost. They hadn't been through hell, left alone, created to be a one-man army. Soldiers were a dime a dozen. Even the commanding officers. They were all taught to think in certain ways, strategize in certain ways. Fight in certain ways. They might even expect an assassin. But they wouldn't expect them the way Duo would expect them.

If there was to be an assassin, he would arrive only after finding all Gundams in the air. And if the assassin was going to be stopped, it could well take a Gundam pilot to stop them.

Duo only hoped Noin had somehow contacted Une to warn her that Duo was not an enemy. He didn't feel like fighting the crazy woman.

Well, even if he did end up fighting Une, the battle would give him some time to explain. So long as he didn't end up having a fit in the middle of the damn fight.

First things first. Duo blindly launched himself at the wall. He nearly bounced off, the stupid cushion jouncing wildly against his chest, but he barely managed to scrape his fingers along the top ledge, and with all his strength, he held on. His shoulders and arms and back all ached, top to bottom, as he yanked on pulled muscles and blood pounded through burst vessels. He nearly groaned.

Lifting himself up was even worse; while his arms strained under his weight, he forced his leg to swing wide and up. It had been a lot easier the first time, with the slice of sky above him giving him light and a healthy body to withstand the strain. Now it was like pulling on long lengths of heavy chain, as his body acted more as detriment than anything else. Still, he managed to get one leg up, thanks in no small part to the ladder still sitting against the wall; he used its weakened rungs to rest his leg one and his arms twice. Still, by the time he got his foot on the ledge, his arms shook wildly and his breath was short.

He had to just get it over with. In one hard yank he tore himself up, squeezed his shoulders forward and used his back against the back wall, and with his one foot he shoved up. His back scraped against the thick metal that covered the back wall. Only once he was straight up could he put his other foot down and distribute his weight from his poor, abused foot to the other. He gave himself fifteen long seconds to get himself under control. If he rushed out now, the Preventers men would take him out in an instant.

Of course, he thought, if there was no assassin, he was absolutely wasting his and the Preventers' time. And if there was, and he came at just the wrong time, Duo's entrance would be all he needed to get close.

Maybe he should just wait below? Stay out of everyone's way? After all, simply climbing a damn wall had him nearly in fits. What good was he to anyone this way? Maybe he should just stand down. He may want to help, but any attempt to do so could–

Nope, scratch that. Duo could clearly hear something happening, even from beyond the thickly paneled inner walls. A fight.

Well, Duo had first met the princess by saving her. Maybe these things always went full circle.

Of course, if they did, then she would turn on him and protect her defender, but, hey, beggars and choosers, yeah?

Honestly, he couldn't even say why he felt it absolutely essential that he reach Relena, or why he felt he had to do it quickly. But if Sloan wasn't mentally deficient, he would send...

Crunched into the wall, he nonetheless attempted to press his ear to the door. Son of a bitch. That was the sound of fighting.

To hell with stealth. He felt carefully along the wall in front of him. The wall opened up from a hidden ring of wood, only recognizable because it was slightly smoother than the rest, touched by cold and open, stale air for who knew how many years. With the light amount of light from above, he'd found it with little trouble – back when he'd arrived in this stupid place the first time. Now, in the deathly dark, hearing someone shout, hearing a gunshot rip into a wall thankfully not his own, his hand scrabbled wildly along the edges of the wall. He knew he'd been able to reach it, just barely, from his right. As someone on the ladder would have reached up their hand, he needed to wrench his body slightly to the side, bend perpendicular to his waist, and fumble like an idiot for – there! The wood suddenly turned nearly smooth, and he pushed in with one tight fist. Hell fire; one of the damn wood frames was right beside it. If he'd remembered that, he could have just leaned until he'd found that and shimmied himself down from there.

Oh, well. He had the release, and the door swung open even as he berated himself, and without waiting to take full stock of what was happening, he tucked into a roll and moved.

When he got up, he could hardly tell who were the Preventers and who the assassins, only that they all wore outfits of dark gray and black. At least four guns pointed in his direction. "I'm a Gundam pilot!" he shouted. "I'm here to help!"

Two people lowered their weapons for a fraction of a second, and he pulled out his own and rolled again, shooting down one of the men who hadn't hesitated. One of the Preventers finished him off.

The room was wide, a big back foyer made to look over the gardens in fancy chairs, drinking wine that cost four or five digits a bottle. Several of the chairs had already been turned around to assist the men who'd broken in. From where? One of the hidden entrances? How had they known where they were?

Relena.

"Relena's in trouble! Hold them off!"

Duo raced past another assassin – there were four of them, even with the one he'd downed, and only two Preventers stood against them. Duo dodged one who turned on him, kicked out one of his knees, and left. One of the Preventers shot the man he'd taken down. "Wait!" the man called. But the three remaining assassins shot at him then, and he had to hide behind a tiny round table about the size of an old shield. It might have been able to hold two cups on its face. Duo left the Preventers to it and hurried to the front foyer.

If he were Relena, he would hide in the entrance that made her feel safest. It would be the one from her room. From the second closet, where the mirror sat along the back wall, beside where she kept her absolutely frilliest, laciest, pinkest dresses his eyes had ever been blinded by seeing. The place where a long blue dress sat in the very back, covered by plastic, like some sort of wedding dress, or some antique far too valuable to ever actually be worn.

The front foyer led to the fastest route. And of course, it led to more Preventers, tensely looking to the back entrance. Once again, Duo was greeted with guns in his face. "There are three more, and two Preventers. They don't have any cover. Only one of you is needed to flank them." He did a quick count. Four barrels in his face. "One flank, one come with me." He pointed to the one not wearing a confused look. "You. Come on; they've broken through security."

"Like you." The one he'd picked didn't budge.

"Yes, like me, only they're trying to kill Relena – the foreign minister. For the – I'm a Gundam pilot. And if I wanted you morons dead, you'd be dead. So move it!"

"All of the pilots are fighting," the man said, still not budging.

"All of the pilots you know about," Duo said, and finally the man faltered. Good. He didn't have any more time to waste with these morons. "Move or shoot me. I don't care any more. But if you shoot me, I'm shooting you, too. And I won't miss."

The man's lips thinned, but he nodded one of the men into the back. He followed Duo, but not for an instant did he lower his gun. Fine. Whatever. Duo would just have to keep an eye on him, too.

Duo led the way up the stairs. They were the same princess stairs he remembered, the double stairs that led down to a little landing halfway down so Relena could pause and stand like a queen in front of her serfs. Duo had actually snickered that behind a glass once. It had made Trowa chuckle and Heero and Quatre glare at him.

He swore, if he got through all this with the little princess alive, he would find Trowa next. Before Sloan did anything else, before he got involved in any more battles, he would ensure that every single one of the pilots were reunited. He hoped he would get the chance. Trowa was always the hardest; since he and Quatre hadn't met, he wouldn't be easy to find. It had been Quatre who had drawn him in. Maybe he could use the little blond somehow?

Enough. He couldn't hear any fighting from above, which meant either the Preventers had already taken care of the problem, the assassins had taken care of the Preventer problem, the assassins hadn't arrived yet, or... or, well, the assassins had come up through the other entrance. Which meant the crap down in the foyer might have been nothing more than a distraction. A fake assassination attempt, merely to get the Preventers to think Sloan had made his attempt and failed.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he was. If Sloan had known enough to be able to get some assassins into the actual estate without the snipers on the second or third floors to notice them, then what were the chances he didn't have any of them heading into the other secret entrances, from the other side on each one? Or maybe he only knew some of them, and was staking everything on finding the right one, or the assassins taking the Preventers by surprise by coming out through those entrances?

Whatever the case, it was now vital he reach Relena's side. He couldn't ensure her safety without being able to actually stand in front of her – couldn't protect her without first keeping her guarded behind him. If nothing else, even if he had a fit, he could be used as a meat shield.

The second floor of the estate was nothing like the bottom; a maze of guest rooms and little dining rooms and other useless rooms, all jumbled together through a labyrinth of twists and turns. Duo had almost gotten lost once; every wall was the same super-light pink (ugh) and every floor had the same damn red carpet. Yet now he traversed them with ease, remembering the three left turns after the first right before one reached Relena's personal chambers, deep in the catacombs of the Darlian estate. The place was certainly silent like catacombs. Duo's every step, silent as he tried to be, echoed a million times throughout the corridors, trembling down halls he passed. And then there he was, in front of Relena's room, and he paled slightly. There were already signs of abuse; the Preventer who'd been tailing him, gun trained on Duo's back, raced forward, checking the room. Duo followed slightly behind. Had he been too late? He hoped he hadn't been too late. Wouldn't that just suck? Late again. Another death. Another, more permanent echo.

The room had been searched. Why? Duo turned his gaze to the false tv opening. That looked to have been tampered with. Very, very carefully, he made a spectacle of racing to the thing, even as he kept himself out of the line of fire. He turned to his impromptu partner. Thankfully, this one had brains in his head, and he stayed clear of both the closet and the windows. Duo made a slightly subtler spectacle of checking the area, even as he nodded to the Preventer to check the area. He nodded and moved finally to the closet. They had to act as if they were merely clearing the room in case anyone was watching them – in case the real hidden room hadn't yet been found.

When the Preventer finally came back with a slim shake of his head, Duo nearly collapsed with relief. Still time. Thank everything.

Duo slunk through, still trying to make it seem as if he merely wanted to double-check the Preventer's work. The room practically vibrated with silence; it was loud with it, tense, like a bubble about to pop. It made him take shallow breaths, as if he was sneaking up on someone, knife in hand, to sink the blade deep before the enemy knew he was in the room. His back arced, legs dipping low. But when he reached the closet and crossed the doorway, he found no one within. Even as he moved the dresses – and there were a lot of dresses – he found no one within. Not even a corpse.

And as the Preventer had stated, the mirror was completely intact; no one had even thought to look too closely at it. Duo blew out another tiny breath. He looked over to the Preventer, standing at the front of the closet as if to watch over Duo's back. If Duo tried to get inside, the man would turn on him in an instant. Duo was just as much an unknown as the actual enemies. So he coughed lightly. The Preventers agent turned immediately at the sound, and at Duo's deliberate stare, came in, as well. If things in this reality were the same (ha!) as his own, there would be other mirror faces waiting just within, on hooks, to replace the one broken in order to get inside. If not, then Duo and his Preventer friend were about to lead Relena to the enemy's feet.

Still, what choice did they have? Relena was going to get swarmed one way or the other. The other entrance wasn't nearly as hidden, and these people were already attacking the estate.

Besides. Coming this far and doing nothing was just stupid.

And with that, Duo reached out, grabbed one of the dresses, and wrapped it around his elbow. The Preventer pressed his lips together, but he didn't argue. He only said, "stay in front of me." Duo didn't even bother acknowledging it, just turned and elbowed the mirror in the upper middle of the massive thing. A few shards pierced through the light shielding of the silky dress, tiny stabs of pressure that were too sharp to hurt. The rest crinkled and clattered to the floor, spraying the floor with rainbow reflections of the ceiling, the dresses, the agent, and himself. The latch, just a tiny little lever of a thing hidden amongst the black of what might first appear to be the inside of the mirror, flipped easily under Duo's finger. But before it could open, and completely against what the agent wanted, he moved the hell out of the way. And because he was a freakin' saint sometimes, he even yanked the agent with him. The agent struggled for all of two seconds before the firing started.

The agent grunted short acknowledgment of Duo's selfless intervention before calling to the agents inside to stand down. "It's me! Carter!"

The gunfire ceased so abruptly it made Duo's ears ring. Or, well, he hoped that was the reason; if he fell now, he might be in trouble. "What are you doing here?" The voice was tense, and deep. Duo put his hands out, showing himself to be unarmed – as if that could really stop him – before peeking over the edge of the entrance. A bald man with skin so brown it looked black in the dim light glared back at him. Duo tried on a grin. "Hi, there! My name's Duo. I'm a Gundam pilot. Yes, I know you don't know me. Nice to meet you anyway. I came to help, and have helped, so don't shoot me, yeah?"

The man looked like he was seriously considering ignoring Duo's request when Carter said, "We have Sloan's men downstairs. He helped contain them. If you don't like him, shoot him. I don't know if he's an asset or a detriment."

Duo let that one slide, but he watched their gun hands very carefully. "Yeah, most people have that reaction to me." The black man looked him up and down, slowly, his finger steady on his trigger. Something shivered in those dark eyes of his. Duo nearly wanted to fidget. "So maybe we should try to clean this up, yeah?" He pointed over his shoulder at the glass. He saw the shards sticking out of his arm as he did.

He left the glass in until they had the floor swept up as well as the could without running the vacuum cleaner. Duo even got down on his hands and knees and grabbed as many of the tiny slivers as he could find; if the enemy got into the room and had time to look around, then they would have time to see the infinitesimal glints shining like spotlights from within the carpeting. Then they all trooped inside, the pads of Duo's fingers a bit the worse for wear, but not bleeding enough to do more than coat his fingers in red, and Big, Black, and Burly slipped another mirror onto the empty frame before sealing them up inside the secret chamber.

As soon as they were closed inside, Duo found the chamber to be rather tight. And by rather tight he meant pretty damn tight. He was squeezed in between two men, one of them even bigger than he'd thought, his muscles edging into the darkness around them. Only further down the corridor could Duo see the smallest flicker of light; likely they kept themselves in darkness, hoping to make the place seem abandoned if anyone did find it. Or perhaps to keep their eyes adjusted to the darkness in case someone came in from outside.

Someone like Duo, who was only now adjusting enough to see that Burly wasn't nearly strong enough a word. Black Hulk led him down the corridor, the other agent's gun trained on Duo's back the entire way.

The corridor was mainly a straight line from the princess' room to the outer entrance, but there was a small area that held provisions. This tiny, cramped space, about one third of the way through the chamber from the princess' room, was where the princess and her guards sat, tense, watching as they slowly approached. They sat on barrels of what was hopefully food and not explosive gunpowder or potassium nitrate or something, a tiny flashlight glancing off their backs and shining on the empty wall opposite them.

Duo got his first glance at Relena, and his first thought was nothing more than vivid recognition. Her hair was pulled back in that usual braided thing she'd often used as a child, though he thought it was the slightest bit shorter than usual. And she wore pink – when did she not – though the suit was a pants one, and not her usual skirts. But then she turned slightly more into the light, and his breath hissed in. The report bout her having a large scar on her face wasn't wrong. It curved out from just above her right eyebrow and down over her cheek, marring the high cheekbone and slanting toward her mouth, destroying her dimple. Duo hissed. "Hey, princess," he said, his mouth moving on autopilot, and wanted to slap himself. Relena from this world would not get the joke.

And indeed, she thoroughly missed it. "I'm not a princess." And she tilted her head, in that naïve way she'd always had, though it only made that scar of hers stand out brighter in the light, jagged with the obvious ragged edge of something not unlike a claw – shrapnel. Duo had seen such wounds before. "Who are you?"

She didn't seem nearly as concerned as she should have been. Because the Preventers would have either defeated him or been corpses in his path? Duo hoped so. Naivete was not going to be fun to deal with. His Relena had learned the hard way, however, and he didn't know if he would like seeing the Relena experience created. "I know you're not; it's a joke." She gave him a polite smile, but not one of actual humor. He sighed. "I came to help protect you."

She frowned. "I have the Preventers."

"And you ran through us to get here," the man behind Duo said. Black Hulk just glared.

"Which should be proof enough," Duo said, jutting out his chin. He was still waiting for that shaky, about-to-lose-it shit, another attack from Death, and it was starting to worry him that he hadn't felt it yet.

"You cut through our defense," the agent snapped. "Granted, Miss Peacecraft had nearly been attacked. But still. The risk!"

Duo just stared at him.

"Well?" Relena asked, and the voice was not one he'd ever heard from her before. Neither innocent nor jaded, but something in-between. Knowledgeable. "Why, then, did you come?"

Duo looked right at her, ignoring the mark on her face. Whether this was the Relena he knew or not, it didn't change his goal. "Because, even half-dead, I'm stronger than your men, princess." And it was nothing but the truth.

Something like fear flashed over her face for a moment, and the agent behind him spoke. "You said you're a Gundam pilot."

Duo nodded. "I am. And I'm going to stay right here and make sure nothing happens to you. Okay, Relena?"

Her eyes were dark in the small shadows of her face, but he could see the sparkle of them. She stared at him without moving, no smile on her lips. She was definitely not the Relena of his world, not at all. He didn't know who she was. But Heero had wanted to protect her, and she was still the leader everybody wanted dead, so certain aspects of her had to remain. (But Heero wasn't really Heero, either, and Duo had no clue if this world's values were the same as his own...)

But then she nodded, just slightly, and tilted her head once more, giving him a small smile. "If you mean to help us, I won't turn you away."

Oh. So she was like Relena, only smarter. His heart actually fluttered. Was this the Relena Heero had always seen? Because Duo thought he might actually like her. So he nodded, too, and leaned back against the rock wall, ignoring the angry, nearly cantankerous look from the Black Hulk. "Works for me," he said.

He kept track of time only because he thought there should have been some reaction from the curse by now. Why wasn't it attacking him? Not that he was going to complain; of course not. But it was strange. He'd hardly been able to go an hour without feeling it. Now he'd gone for several – about four or five – without the slightest twinge. Was it girding itself for some monster attack? Would it crush him, immobilize him? Cripple him? Kill him?

Well, if it was that last one, he would be thrilled if it held off for, oh, forever.

The rock groaned softly every once in a while ,likely absorbing the blasts from above. It shuddered quietly with a steady trembling only something man-made could achieve. Duo looked up, toward the hidden entrance. It made sense not to have anyone up there, which begged the question as to why Black Hulk had been waiting for them. Did he go up once the sound of breaking glass resonated down through the rock hall, or did he actually stand guard, ready to give whoever came through ammunition enough to believe the princess was further below?

Time passed slowly. Barely a half hour passed before Black Hulk began showing tension. Relena, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease. Definitely not the princess he'd known. Duo tilted his head. "So what happened, if I may ask?"

Relena turned to him and lifted a brow. Duo nodded toward her scar. Black Hulk nearly growled, but Relena seemed completely unperturbed. "After Oz killed my father, they came after me. I ended up underneath rubble. That's how I got this." She motioned slightly to her face. "I was left for dead. I nearly was. I still don't know how I got out. I kept passing out. I thought I would die. But I managed to claw my way through."

If Duo remembered Heero's stories correctly, that had been near the beginning of the war. But Heero had said Oz had been after him, and that Relena had merely 'gotten involved.' In any case, it didn't answer why _this_ Heero hadn't been there?

And then, slowly, it came to him. Relena had been attacked in her teens. In this universe, Heero was still with J, training for an operation that wouldn't kick off for another five years. And because of that, Relena had been all alone when Oz had come for her. No wonder she was so much more mature than her parallel counterpart.

She cocked her head. "Is that a satisfactory answer?"

Duo grinned. "Yep, that'll work. It ads character. Battle scars tend to do that, though, I suppose."

His words pulled out a brilliant mega-watt grin. She seemed almost startled by it; she ducked her chin into her chest. After a long, silent moment, she simply said, "thank you."

The weight then was far less stilted; Black Hulk took to pacing back and forth along the length of the corridor, his footfalls oddly muffled. Padded boots? Likely; there was no way a man of that bulk could walk around on stone floors without starting some sort of echo otherwise. Carter stood just by the little niche, closer to Duo, his hand still on the trigger, his gun still pointed at Duo's side. He just might really like this guy.

Duo leaned against the edge of the niche, closer to Relena and the barrels than the others. Duo saw the outline of two more men at the other end of the corridor, nearly hidden against the darkness. He had no doubt that at least one of them was watching him, as well. No others crouched within nearby; if there were more, they were far enough from the niche that Duo couldn't see them and they couldn't see him.

The ground shook fiercely just as Relena looked back at him. With the scar playing along the shadows of her face, she looked nearly dark, and certainly battle-weary. "May I ask you a question in return?"

Duo tilted his head. "Go for it, princess."

She gave him a very familiar little grimace. It was the first time he saw something that reminded him of the Relena he'd known. "How were you able to pilot a Gundam? You must have been very young."

"Not really," Duo said. "I look good for my age." She raised one delicate little eyebrow at that. He chuckled. "Okay, you got me." He ignored the sudden tension in Carter and his cohorts. "I may be a Gundam pilot, but definitely not one you would know. Or ever have had a chance of knowing. For me, the war only ended a couple of years ago."

And there was a second thing he recognized: that pucker that formed between her brows when she furrowed them. "I don't understand."

"It's a long, complicated, and very, very weird story. I would suggest getting it from an outside source, because you're never going to believe me." She sat, unmoving. After several silent minutes, he capitulated. Whoever this Relena was, he thought he might really like her, too. "All right, all right! I'm from another dimension."

Carter actually laughed.

"Oi!" he said, then stopped. "No, yeah, you're right; it's ridiculous. But it's true." He could see the shine of blue in her eyes as Relena turned fully to face him. Her scar sat plain before the flashlight's gleam, sending the shadows of the wound across her cheek and along the edge of her nose. "Things went bad in my world. You and the other pilots died. I was the only one left." He shrugged. "I didn't really have some big plan to save everything – I'm no Heero. I just thought I should do _something_. And then that blew up in my face, and now here I am." He spread his arms wide, ignoring the look Carter gave him for daring to move.

Relena stared at him fro quite a while. Duo finally dropped his arms to his sides. Black Hulk kept right on pacing back and forth, but now he had a squinty-eyed look at him, like he was trying to decide if Duo was a dangerous lunatic or a sinister liar. Or maybe a shapeshifting rattlesnake; the man just seemed to generally detest him. He didn't know how far he was going to go with the idea of getting to like Black Hulk.

The staredown finally ended when Relena looked down. Duo only then noticed her boots, only slightly more sensible than the high heels he was used to seeing on her. They still had heels, but they were thicker, at least – easier to walk on. They were that nude-beige color – or they might have been, once. The dust and dirt had turned them a much darker brown. She busied herself untying the laces and tightening them. "That sounds lonely," she said finally.

Duo managed to hide the tension her astuteness generated within him, mostly by shrugging and waving a hand. Deflection and distraction, that was the name of the game. "Yeah, well, getting the gang back together – or, well, just together, I guess – has been a feat and a half over here. It's kept me busy."

Relena looked neither appeased nor impressed. Well, if there had to be a downside to the whole personality overhaul, he supposed it could be that.

"I don't do heart-to-hearts," he said, giving in to that look. He looked over to Black Hulk, who was making his round toward the mirror, and thus able to glare directly into Duo's eyes. "Especially not with eavesdroppers."

Black Hulk curled his lip.

Relena sent Black Hulk a short look. Her lip twitched. "I understand."

More silence then, and Duo started counting the time between rumbles instead of the dreary mental countdown going on in the back of his mind. Ten minutes since the latest rumbling, and Duo started wondering if the battle was over. More than an hour had passed since he'd come to join the little troupe in the escape cave. It was more than enough time for the other him and Heero to straighten things out – if they weren't battling to the death themselves. Which was a real possibility, and one he wished he could be there to stop. But he knew Relena was the first priority, and it wasn't like he'd be able to break up a fight between Gundams, anyway.

Still. He was certain he should have had an attack by now. He clenched his hand. Nothing odd in the feel of his skin or the reaction of his muscles. His nerves no longer felt like worms wriggling under his skin. Nothing solidified his organs or pressed down on his chest. Normal. He felt almost normal. What exactly would he have to blame for this reaction, and how badly would it come to bite him in the ass?

Well, at least it seemed the fighting had crawled to its end; there would be little more than the stragglers left, the men who didn't get out with their squadron, or were caught behind enemy lines, or were lost on the battlefield. Black Hulk took to standing guard at each end of the corridor for a few minutes before pacing to the other side. Carter, bless his staid heart, kept his gun on Duo without once relaxing his grip. He _really_ liked the guy.

Another fifteen minutes and even Duo could admit to losing his patience. He wanted to check on the progress of the battle, on the health of Heero and the other him (although Heero dying might have seemed nearly impossible a few short months ago, now it was a very real reality, one that had him gripping his left hand, and the ring thereon, tight in his right). But he couldn't leave without risking the princess, and even if he did, he would be useless. He had nothing more than a dagger and a gun. Enough stragglers would take him down, especially if he ended up having an attack.

Which really, really should have happened by now.

And where were the other Preventers? Shouldn't someone have given them some sort of notice by now? Tapped on the mirror or banged on the wall or something? And if the place outside had been cleared, shouldn't they have had someone come in through the outdoor exit? Duo tapped his fingers on his arm. It shouldn't take them too long to clear around the building. It should have been their first priority, before anywhere else in the city. They would want to get Relena out and to a safe place. Unless this Relena refused to leave? In which case they would want to find a more secure location for her.

He eyed her. She seemed far more reasonable than the Relena he'd known, but she might be just as stubborn. "You intend to go to a safe place after this, don't you?" he asked, afraid her answer would be about the same as his Relena's – a snippy, 'no, of course not; I cannot run and abandon my country or my people,' blah blah stupid stupid yadda yadda.

But this Relena was better in all ways, apparently, because she gave him a strange, almost wary look and said, "of course."

He nodded. "Don't worry; I don't care where you go. Well, so long as it's safe. And getting another of the pilots with you would be a good idea. Quatre, maybe? And when I find Trowa, I can send him to join the two of you. But if you'd prefer Wufei or Heero – you know, whatever. It's not like I'm going to be of much use any longer." But he couldn't help but feel some hope, because he'd been waiting this entire time and had yet to be seized by Death's Curse again. Did that mean something significant had happened that he'd missed, or did it just mean he was in the eye of the storm? He wished _something_ would happen. Waiting was driving him mad. "It's just that the Relena I knew wouldn't have abandoned the city, or even the building. She would think it a sign of strength instead of a sign of, well, stupidity."

Her frown deepened, and he wondered if maybe insulting a her that wasn't her was still considered an insult. "Why wouldn't I retreat? There's no point in having ideals if you're dead."

Good lord, could she be real? Or was he already dying and experiencing some sort of hallucinatory Nirvana? "I agree, but... well, I don't think that Relena ever really understood war. She understood death, but she associated it with evil, and the acts of cowards and tyrants, and never as something that just _happened_."

There was that tilted head thing again. She almost looked like a bird. Deep in the underground, with only the flashlight beaming on her, she seemed almost like a bird caught in a cage. "What kind of world did you know?"

He shrugged. "One a lot like this, really. You're just a lot easier to deal with in this one."

 _A bird in a cage_. Shinigami's bone-breasts, he was stupid!

Why attack? _Why bother attacking?_ Yes, a pretty show of force worked, but as he'd already suspected, it was nothing more than a distraction. Those few men had never been intended to reach Relena's hiding spot. And why should they? Why bother? The Preventers had already done the work for them and dragged her into a cage from which there were few ways out. Nothing was needed save for the right moment, the right opportunity. A battlefield might be distressing, and it may be difficult to focus on everything in the chaos, but everyone was on alert. Everyone expected the worst to happen when bullets were flying and blood sprayed the ground like rain. Why add oneself to it all? Why present oneself as a target?

All of this, the entire battle – the mobile suits, the ground troops, even the assassins – it was all for show. Every last bit of it was a distraction. Save this part – right now, when Carter's attention was merely on Duo, his head no longer cocked to listen for outside noise, as the two men in the shadows leaned negligently against the wall, must like Duo, when Black Hulk stomped back and forth, fists clenched as he waited for a sound from outside – a sound he would likely never hear, because _this_ would be the perfect time to strike.

He barely managed to open his mouth and shout before the sound of breaking glass shattered the quiet.


	6. Brother In Arms

Black Hulk, believe it or not, was the first to move, taking point in front of all of them and heading straight for the entrance. It was unlikely that the Preventers would take this route, though if the building outside was compromised, Duo supposed it was possible. He turned to the two men in the shadows, now standing up from their relaxed posts against the wall. "Hey. One of you go with him, just in case. Carter's watching me," he said when they hesitated. Finally one of them moved, though Duo noted they both turned, not to Carter, but to Relena, and waited for her nod before splitting off. One man, a thin rail of a guy with a mullet, of all things, hurried out down the passageway after Black Hulk. The other turned toward the other side of the tunnel and the outer exit at its end. Duo moved to stand over Relena, Carter at his side, looking a bit stressed over Duo's proximity to the princess.

The last fading hope that it could be Preventers agents died at the shout from Black Hulk and the sharp bleat of gunfire. Relena made to stand. Duo held her back. There wasn't enough room in the niche for both her and the barrels, and it would be a million times easier to protect her if she stayed where she was.

Duo turned to the last nameless agent. "Got down the other way," he said, his voice barely over a whisper, Carter made an aborted noise before snapping his mouth shut. "They'll try to head us off both ways. If they didn't know the entrance before this whole mess started, they know by now. They probably used the damn fight as a chance to snoop around." The agent didn't move. "Go!"

Again, the man looked to Relena, and again, she nodded him on. Duo would definitely have to ask about that. Later.

"All right, princess, I'm gonna have to ask you to stay the hell behind me," Duo said, even though she hadn't yet made any moves to the contrary yet. She obviously wasn't the Relena he'd known, who would have nearly shoved him out of the way in order to negotiate with her assassins. Another hoarse shout. One last gunshot. Duo grimaced. If it had been Black Hulk, there would have been more than one double tap. "They're coming."

Carter took point, standing before the niche. As soon as something moved in the shadows, Carter opened fire. Duo ducked Relena down lower and pulled out his own gun. If he were alone, he could just cut the light and pull out his dagger. But with Relena to protect, he dared not leave his spot.

One shadow toppled over with a grunt, but it was quickly picked up by another. A meat shield. Wonderful. And they had nothing at all to hide behind. Well, unless Carter fell. But Duo wasn't willing to let that happen. He _liked_ Carter.

With one last hand on Relena's arm as a reminder to stay put, Duo leaned forward, carefully keeping himself between Relena and her attackers, and aimed at the shield. There was a chance to get a shot past the shield, but he needed exact aim. With their enemies keeping to the shadows, that was quickly becoming impossible. "Fuck. Get in the light, bastard," he breathed. And a moment later, the flashlight swung out to their enemies. Duo didn't wait. He took the shot, straight through the dead man's open eye. The man behind made a garbled noise and dropped his shield. Carter ignored the man for something beyond the flashlight's range, so Duo took the kill shot. Only then did he looked behind him, at the princess who still held out the light, her eyes wide but her hand very steady.

Relena Peacecraft had just helped him kill someone.

Something crashed. Duo turned back, but the sound hadn't come from Carter's side. He looked over to the lone man left on the outdoor exit. He wasn't there. Had he already moved to the sound of the break-in, or was he already another victim? Just as he was about to ask, Relena moved the light over to the side. Nothing. No body. No blood. Not much time, however; whatever group they'd had come in from Relena's room was strong, but small. They couldn't afford too many men now, of course, not without alerting someone from outside as to what they were doing. But enough men had come in from one side to take down the Hulk, and maybe the man Duo had sent up to help him. Which meant that if they had the same amount of force on the other entrance, it was only a matter of time before they arrived.

Duo grabbed Relena's arm. "Off," he said. And sure enough, the princess actually did as he commanded and turned the light off. Duo could hear Carter fighting still. He hoped the man survived. But he couldn't afford to go to the man's defense. He couldn't even afford him a second glance. Hopefully the agent didn't die.

With the light out, Duo's sight proved completely useless; he had to trust his other senses to keep from bumping into the tunnel walls or busting into the middle of Carter's fight. He pulled Relena down into a low position behind him. She shuffled around a little bit, and he turned to tell her to try to be quiet. But then his eyes adjusted enough to see that she was taking off her high-heeled shoes, and he thought maybe she wasn't Relena after all, but some sort of cyborg alien from some far-off planet. He also thought it was a damn shame he still thought of her as a sort of little sister, because he would really love to kiss her right then.

When she was done, she actually left them both behind, as if they were unimportant – Relena, shoes, unimportant, holy butt crack – and stayed behind him as he started moving forward. She actually stayed low, and didn't bother asking what Duo was thinking. Well, maybe that was a bit odd – shouldn't she be a little less trusting of him? – but really, Relena had always been ridiculously trusting (cue memory of her protecting her would-be murderer from Duo's heroics), and maybe that was a part of her best left unaltered. At least she understood that she needed to be quiet, that they needed to present as little a target as possible. She wasn't going to blend in with the scenery very well, so he could take her past the niche, where she could act as a false shadow – something the assassins might initially think was a dip in light, when it was merely her light pink business suit. He, on the other hand, was dressed in primarily black and gray, and it would be a simple task to slide through the darkness. If only he could leave Relena enough to use his dagger.

His eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out the dark shapes of Carter and his opponent. They seemed to be doing some sort of dance, carefully avoiding the place where the two other assassins had fallen, fumbling against the walls and grappling with one another. Were they out of bullets, or had they dropped their guns, or was there perhaps some other reason?

Whatever the case, they were deeply entrenched, and Duo needed to get Relena to safety first and foremost. So of course that was when he heard a deep grunt, followed immediately by some small force splattering against the rock walls. Something dripped.

Well. No gunshots. These guys had silent weapons. Daggers, or poison, or... two men stepped out, both tiny and slim and young. Unassuming. One still held his weapon. Well. Daggers it was.

Duo couldn't differentiate the forms in front of him very well; he could see a distorted shape, too thick and long to be one head. He saw the darkness of their bodies, and the shadow of it that blended them into the darkness. He'd always been told his night vision was superior; that was why he'd been the one the other rats had relied on to steal from the merchant carts at night. It was why he'd been able to get onto the military base and off with a mobile suit. And it was why he could see the amorphous blobs that were the two men while they kept squinting around in the dark.

He fired once, twice, in rapid succession. One man dropped without a word. The other grunted. Duo saw him raise his arm and grabbed Relena about her shoulders – and there was the indignant squawk he'd been waiting for this whole time – and pulled her to the left. Duo saw the dagger nearly glint in the dim lighting, and then something thunked into a barrel. He nearly slipped on a small pool of blood, the darkness too thick to see the difference between it and the stone floor. He tried nevertheless to keep Relena away from it.

The damn area was a straight line, and with enemies on either side, they were closed off. Duo couldn't hope to drag Relena through the battle currently underway between Carter and the assassin from Relena's room, and trying to take her through the two on the exit side would be just as dangerous. He would have to take them both down before relinquishing his position as Relena's shield. There was no way he would be able to do that without... well, without potentially getting his butt handed straight to Shinigami. He yanked Relena behind him when she moved as if to leave his side. She huffed a short breath as the assassins closed in on them.

Duo hurried into the blood pool as the men pulled up their hands – he couldn't see for sure what they had in their hand; he could only assume the assassin would be able to take him and Relena, even with their reach still a meter or so away. Relena yelped as they slid, and he had to hold on strong enough to bruise to keep her from falling. But the sudden switch in movement, sliding as they did through the puddle, made the bullet the assassin shot miss. Duo ducked low, yanking Relena unceremoniously with him, and kicked out. The man jumped back, but Duo got another chance to shoot, and this time the assassin retreated more fully. Duo didn't let them get away. He tugged Relena with him. Her feet slipped again as they switched from blood to stone once more, their feet still making slightly slapping sounds as they trailed the blood after them. The assassin – and now he was certain it wasn't a man at all; the person was tall, but their slim figure was a smidge too curvy, even in the stretched lengths of the shadowed darkness – twisted in an almost acrobatic motion. Duo scowled.

The assassin took another shot, a clear miss obviously meant to keep Duo back – and hurried once more down the tunnel. Duo took a single step to chase her, but stopped at the feel of Relena's body stumbling behind him. He sucked in a deep breath and turned to the other entrance. Carter was completely out of sight. Duo couldn't tell if he was still fighting, or if he'd won, or lost... he ducked down, once more pulling Relena down, as well, and finally shot out the damn flashlight. Relena hissed in a breath as the darkness became absolute.

He wanted to go help Carter, but he couldn't afford to. He wanted to chase after the female assassin, but that was definitely out with Relena tagging along with his every move. Now, no matter who was winning or losing, he would at least be able to keep Relena from the immediate line of fire. That was the best thing he could hope to accomplish. He still turned to where he knew she stood, mostly due to his continued hold on her, and lightly touched her shoulder. She jumped. He wished he could risk asking her if she was all right; he couldn't really afford for her to have some sort of mental breakdown. Not that this Relena seemed half as... to be politically correct, _mentally vulnerable_ as the Relena he'd known, but still. That just left him not knowing how much was too much. Besides, this Relena might have triggers he didn't know about. The darkness might have sent her into some catatonic state, and he wouldn't even know. And trying to drag around someone catatonic would be a bit more difficult than someone still in possession of their senses.

The two directions were still cut off. If he tried to bring Relena through the opening made by the female assassin leaving, he could end up bringing her face to face with the woman, and out in the open, just exiting the tunnel, they would be open targets. Especially if there were more waiting for them. The same was true on the other side, but with the added wild card of the assassin Carter had been fighting. Staying where they were wasn't exactly sound, either. He was suddenly very upset about the idea of taking to this exit. How many times had he and the street gang refused to go somewhere with only two exits? Stupid. But there wasn't time to worry about that now. Hindsight. What a bitch.

In the end, it would be safer to try to go past Carter. Not because the assassin wasn't a risk, or because he thought it less likely that the assassins got through the entirety of the Preventer line – the fact that Black Hulk and his friend hadn't returned didn't bode well for the other Preventers' chances – but because there would be more hiding spots and walls within the estate than outside in the middle of the estate's expansive yard.

He felt a fumbling hand over his arm, and he tensed, ready to grab those groping fingers and break them. But an assassin would have already struck. Then those thin fingers squeezed his arm, and he realized it was Relena. Giving him the go-ahead. Holy crow, this definitely wasn't the Relena he knew.

He grinned. Well. If he was being invited to head out, then who the hell was he to disappoint a freakin' princess?

Soft sound could still be heard, of course, coming from the other entrance. He headed toward them. And though at first he was once more pulling Relena along by the wrist, soon enough she was slinking, only slightly louder than he himself, likely because of her lack of shoes, right behind him, letting the pressure on his wrist lead her forward.

A wet sound, another short thud, and then silence, just as Duo came upon the place where he'd last seen Carter battling it out. The sounds came from only a foot or so away. Duo froze, Relena pausing a short second behind him, nearly bumping into his back. Her warmth centered behind him as he strained his ears. Was that the scuffling sound of a boot, or the settling of rock after the tremors the earth had taken from the battle above ground? But _that_ , that was the sound of someone fumbling a new magazine into a gun.

Duo took a horrible chance and let go of Relena's hand. It meant losing her in the dark; it meant leaving her vulnerable to attack. It also meant he could slip up to the sound and shove hard into someone's legs. They fumbled, then crashed to the ground. Duo reared up over the person, though it meant leaving himself open to a gunshot if the person had gotten the clip in, or a dagger thrust if the person had held one in their hand. But most people left themselves completely vulnerable when reloading, and Duo took the chance. The person beneath him barely grunted as he laid his weight on them and snatched their arm. He felt the gun in their hand and twisted. Their free hand came up and bashed him on the side of his head.

"Fuck," the person beneath him whispered as Duo twisted the man's wrist hard enough to break. He recognized the voice and stopped.

"Carter? You're actually alive?"

The man stilled for a moment beneath him, then bucked. Duo let him up. "You fucking asshole!" he hissed. His voice seemed to bounce off the walls, making the space seem larger than it actually was. "I would have killed you!"

"You would have tried," Duo said, working on autopilot. "Your enemy?"

"Down, though I'm not certain I found his pulse point properly _in the flippin' dark, you jackass."_

"Easier," he said. "Relena? Follow my voice." He deliberately kept from saying where they would be headed, just in case the female assassin remained in the tunnel, or in case anyone else might be around listening in. He felt antsy enough calling her out, letting them know where _he_ was, and thus where she was headed. He held his arms out, carefully avoiding Carter where he felt the man's body heat, and waited for Relena, shuffling his feet a few times to let her know where to go. When she blindly patted his chest, he reached down and gripped her hand. He patted Carter, as well. "Turn on me and I'll kill you slowly," he said. Carter harrumphed.

With Relena once more in hand (punny, ha, ha), Duo slowly led them forward, listening for any source of movement. More than once Duo stopped and aimed, only to realize the slight sounds he heard were coming from Carter. He started snarling whenever the man made a noise, until, about halfway-ish down the corridor, Carter finally muttered, "I'm a soldier, not a thief, dammit!"

To which Duo couldn't help but comply, "more the fool you."

Relena. Actually. Giggled.

Carter made a ridiculous ruckus the rest of the way, too, and Duo was of the opinion that he should just leave the man behind and take care of things on the surface alone. But there was an even better way of getting things done than that, and finally Duo stopped them – he thought they were probably close to the end of the underground corridor now – and turned to where Carter most assuredly was. "You go out first."

Carter at least had the grace to say nothing more than, "of course," and then there was a little bit of shuffling as Duo attempted to move to the side to let him through and was stopped by Relena. It took Duo tugging lightly for her to move, and when she did, Duo heard her murmur a quiet, "be careful," before shuffling over with Duo. Somehow, for some reason, Duo only then realized that, even with the suit, even though she was a civilian, she was making less noise than Carter. Duo waited until Carter moved forward, his warmth nearly brushing against Duo's side, and pushing out the back of the mirror, before turning to Relena and softly tugging her forward. He fumbled a bit with his free hand until Carter moved the mirror. The light that shone in, though soft and muted, nearly burned Duo's eyes. He squinted a look outside the tunnel as Carter rolled through. The mirror crackled ominously as Carter's boot bumped it. Relena's eyes were shut tight. Duo grabbed her shoulder and moved to shield her, just in case. And as he did, he asked, "did you have cause to hide in those years before you met Heero?"

And she looked at him with wide eyes and said, "Heero?"

"The angry guy who glares at everyone. His hair looks like he dove into a tornado."

She blinked once, twice. Then, "oh, yes. Him. I hardly know him."

Duo held up his hand, and amazingly, Relena went silent. There was no sound outside the tunnel, save the faint whistle of the wind through the building – likely from the broken windows in Relena's room – and the slight swish of clothing as, Duo presumed, Carter checked the closet for enemies. A few moments later, Carter called a soft all-clear. Duo did not yet leave the tunnel. Carter still had yet to check the rest of the room.

"He makes sure you're safe."

Relena no longer looked surprised. She also didn't look happy, the way his Relena would have. If anything, he thought she might look a little sad. "He's a bit late. And if he does, he does only because he thinks me important to this peace we've achieved."

Duo couldn't help his stare then, even though it was not the safest time in the world to be distracted. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times before he was able to get his head out of his ass and form words. "Well, that may have been what started it out in my world, but the two of you had a different kind of relationship than that. Mutual respect, I think."

Relena just shrugged. "He doesn't seem willing to speak. Or smile."

Duo grinned. "Yeah, well, that's always been Heero." But he couldn't help but remember the Heero he'd known, as opposed to the Heero of this world. They were definitely different. Whatever small amount of light he'd seen when he'd first met Heero – the smartass jibes when he'd been repairing his Wing, the flippant reaction when Duo had gone to rescue him from the Alliance base – that had been missing. There had been nothing of that left in him. His Heero, the one he spoke of so casually to Relena, was dead. He fingered the ring on his hand. "So did you? Have reason to hide?"

Carter whistled out an all-clear, and slowly Duo crept out from the tunnel. He still listened, both inside and out, waiting for one of the assassins to rear back up like zombies, or for someone to come springing out from the nest of dresses in the princess' closet. But nothing so much as swayed, and Relena's steps were slow but soft as she followed after him. Carter, on the other hand, was loud enough that Duo could hear every single step he took as he hurried to the window, then to the door, heading through the hallway, acting out his job as decoy-slash-target dummy. Duo waited patiently to find out if Carter was going to be sporting a few new belly buttons, then led Relena forward.

It wasn't that the building was unnaturally silent. Normally, the silence would always seem piercing after a battle, whether one was involved in the fighting or just happened upon the area afterword. It was as if the world paused in a moment of silence. Not to respect the dead – nature had no patience for such weakness – but to see what happened next. To watch for the victor, and see what the winners would do. And sometimes, to test the strength of the survivors.

Battles between people were only silent for a short hour or so before the looters and raiders arrived. Looters would creep along the edges, just as Duo had once when he'd been younger, searching the bodies for money, food, keys, or other loot. Raiders would come and take over any part of the land not hoarded by the victors. They would steal the bodies, the homes, the cars, the consumer products from stores. They were not quiet or careful like the looters.

Until then, the worst they should have needed to worry about were the injured and the desperate. The losers still within enemy lines, or the men in too much pain to worry about honor. But in the Sanc Estate, neither should be prevalent, or even existent. The Preventers should have been able to keep the place safe. Of course, if that had been the case, the assassins shouldn't have been able to get into both entrances of the hidden tunnel.

And as soon as they were outside of the closet, it was apparent why the assassins had gotten in. Preventers bodies littered the carpet. Duo's lips thinned at the sight. The open windows kept the smell of blood from being overpowering, despite the fact that it was sprayed liberally all over the room. The few assassins that Duo and Carter had fought before entering the hidden exit were merely the icing on the cake – albeit the dried icing on the very gory cake. It was clear none of the victims, either assassin or Preventer, had gone down easily. Blood trailed after the bodies strewn over floor and bed and wall, each larger and messier than the last. Clothing was torn from legs, arms, entire chests. Red stained Preventer green, darkened the already dark black of the assassin's tight clothing. A finger sat in a small puddle of blood. Hair scattered on a small gust of wind from one of the windows.

He turned to Relena. He knew, in his head, that she would not react the way his Relena would have; he knew she wouldn't have her hand to her mouth, tears in her eyes, stance vulnerably frozen as she looked over the destruction. But still it felt wrong to see a Relena who did not fall from her defensive, silent crouch behind him, but who instead merely looked over the bodies with sad, _knowing_ eyes, as if it was all old and familiar and _expected_ , if disappointing.

He squeezed her hand, just a little bit, and she fell immediately into step with him once more as he slowly led her into the room. He stilled, finger light on the trigger of his gun, as shots echoed down the hall. There was the back-up.

He could go and help Carter. It was what he wanted to do. The man was a good one, and likely the last of his team. But it was not the right thing to do. It wasn't even the honorable thing to do. He turned to Relena. Her lips were thin. Unlike his Relena, this one was smart enough to understand. No matter how much she may dislike the idea of it, she knew she was necessary. She understood that each and every member of Preventers was ready and willing to put their lives on the line in order to protect her. And that they were right to do so.

"Head high?" he murmured lowly anyway. She looked at him, and she understood that, too. She nodded. Yes, she would carry on through this.

He turned back, making sure his body guarded her own. The gunfire petered out for a moment, but Duo knew better than to think it was over. If best, Carter had managed to take care of the first line of offense. If worst, Carter was already down, and Duo was left alone defending Relena. Which meant he needed to get her out of there.

But to where? He could go out the window without the slightest problem, but even the different-and-better Relena he had with him likely couldn't jump out of a second-story window and land agilely enough to not twist her ankle or stumble. And if there were enemies outside, sending her out first would end up getting her killed because of it. If, however, he went first, and the enemies within managed to get to Relena while he was uselessly hanging out on the ground waiting for her to come to him, that could also easily mean her death. And going out together wasn't an option; the window was huge, but only in regards to length, not width. And it would be comically pointless to try to jump together with Relena on his back. _He_ would end up twisting his ankle. He was used to carrying heavy materials in all sorts of situations, but even though he thought this Relena would be a million times better at staying still, he still wasn't Superman. Fifty, eighty pounds? Sure. But Relena was an adult now. She weighed likely more than a hundred pounds. And he would not be able to roll to absorb the impact.

He looked at her, then the hallway. Then the window again. He sighed. He was going to do it anyway, wasn't he? Gods, he was stupid.

Relena watched the door into the room as Duo peeked out the window. Of course, he didn't see any enemies. There were a couple more bodies out there, but they didn't seem to be either Preventers or Sloan's assassins. They were merely victims of the unnecessarily convoluted plot. But that wasn't what he was looking for, anyway. He judged the distance to the ground, the available cover nearby. There wasn't much; the back yard wasn't made to help anyone sneak up, which made it equally difficult for anyone to sneak away. But there were a few bushes, and they would have to do for the initial drop. Duo sighed and bent down. He held his hands back behind himself. "Come on, princess."

Relena relinquished her guard on the door to hurry to Duo's side. She didn't ask him what he was doing, or what he had planned. She didn't demand he attempt to go around the fighting, or spare people. Duo wondered how this girl could still be the beacon of hope, the light of peace, when she was so damn practical, but he didn't think he cared. A little darkness didn't cancel out the light; it just made it more prominent.

And maybe it helped make this world a little different. And maybe that was a good thing, because at least this world still existed.

Relena was about as heavy as he'd predicted, her thin arms wrapped around his shoulders and calves supported in his grip. Her stockinged feet stuck out on either side of him. It meant he needed to make sure he landed in a way that prevented any of those protruding body parts – including her head, which she at least ducked into his shoulder beside her arm – from coming to harm. And he had to do so without landing face-first, thus shoving the gun gripped unsafely in his mouth into even more dangerous positions. Yeah. Definitely getting at least a twisted ankle from this.

He looked back once more as more gunshots fired. Well, at least Carter was still alive and kicking. For now. It burned to leave him behind. It felt like leaving behind one of his own pilots. He let go of Relena's left leg to grip the necklace tight in his fist. He felt the cross first, of course, its edges digging into his skin. But then he heard the soft clink of metal, felt the smooth surface of Trowa's and Quatre's rings. Then they slid against the ring on his finger, and he could breathe again. He grabbed Relena's leg once more, waiting until she loosened enough to once more let him hold her tight. Then he stepped up to the window.

The ground looked even further away than it had a few short moments ago. And he thought he could see movement. He stared hard, but there was nothing. An enemy? An ally? A rustling in some small wind? An optical illusion? He didn't have any choice but to test it out. The gunshots were getting louder now, and unless he wanted to throw Relena once more into the line of fire, he needed to get going.

He jumped down.

Controlling his fall was an impossibility with Relena clutching a stranglehold around his neck and torso. He landed predominantly on his feet, which did nothing but make his entire body jar as his legs buckled immediately, unable to take the dual weight. He managed to control the fall enough to slam onto his knees – and this somehow hurt almost as much as the ringing jolt from his ankles and feet – and fell onto his side. The bushes weren't far, only about two meters to his left. But they looked miles away. He'd expected that, but it was something else to be faced with the actual distance.

He winced. "Get to cover," he hissed. And again, she actually did as ordered, without bothering to question.

Which ended up being a very good thing, as the movement he'd seen earlier ended up being a person, after all. Duo only waited until he could catalog it as 'not Preventer' and 'not one of the pilots' before he gripped the gun from his mouth and fired. He still didn't know who it was. It didn't matter. They were dead now.

Of course, that somehow started it off. Didn't it always? Duo didn't know if it was a group of people trying to escape that just thought Duo was an enemy, or if they had actually intended to fight him from the start, but suddenly people started pouring – well, that was a overestimation; more like dragged themselves – out from the edges of the estate yard. Most, if not all, were bleeding in some form or another, and Duo was getting the feeling they hadn't initially been enemies. But they'd gotten too close, and Duo hadn't been willing to take the chance. He could only hope now that these men would focus their aim on him, and that they hadn't seen, or wouldn't bother with, Relena.

One short movement showed that he had indeed messed up his legs somehow. There was so much pain shooting up and down his leg he couldn't begin to try to tell where it was all centered. He guessed the answer, however, was something akin to 'everywhere.'

He didn't have many bullets left, and he didn't know how many might see the bush Relena hid behind twitch and attack blindly. Even though it made the pain in his legs go from 'firenado' to 'reawakening of Mt. Vesuvius,' he forced himself to his feet and ran in front of the damn foliage. If it weren't for the thick pounding of his heart and the harsh breaths wrenched from his lungs, he might have heard something akin to a gasp coming from the bush.

He barely managed to try aiming his weapon, however, before the entire damn ground got obliterated in white. He used his outstretched arm as a shield against the light, turning his body away and hoping Relena was smart enough in this dimension to do the same. Heat radiated out from the light, and the ground shook. A beam rifle. His heart leaped at the very thought, and as soon as the light began to dim, he squinted out as best he could into the sky. The metal of it glinted bright as the sun against the blue backdrop of the sky, but there was no mistaking those beautiful wings. Duo grinned. "Heero!" he shouted, before he remembered that it wasn't _his_ Heero. His heart tugged, twisted, shattered. But he at least managed to keep his smile. At least this Heero still wanted to protect Relena. He wasn't completely lost to whatever fury he lived within. Duo looked down, searching for survivors. But of course Perfect Heero hadn't missed a single man. Their remains were little more than cinders under the rifle's care, some obliterated to nothing more than ash, lost amidst the suddenly wrecked yard. Grass, flowers, all were incinerated to dirt. A couple of bodies were only half destroyed. The upper half of a torso lay still on the ground, guts charred brown and black as they slopped down where the man's lower half had once lain. The smell, two parts spoiled milk, three parts overcooked meat, smacked him in the face.

He turned then to Relena. She barely dared to peek out from behind one of the last pieces of surviving topiary to peer over the destruction. Duo held his hand out to her, even though he almost lost his balance. He couldn't tell where the pain ended and his actual limbs began. He hoped Heero was okay with carrying them back, because he couldn't imagine getting far in his condition.

Of course, even as he thought that, he found a burst of adrenaline at the thought of being that helpless. And suddenly he could feel his knees, like star bursts, comets that left a trail of icy fire up his thighs and down his calves. His ankles stood out prominently, supernovas of pain that sparked and shot like ionic fields. And the knowledge of what was happening – the comet of pain that spoke of bruising, and perhaps of shot tendons, but not of significant damage, the sparks of lightning that said something had broken, or at least fractured – gave him the focus needed to take charge once more.

He looked up. "Relena needs to get to safety!" he shouted, gesturing over to her. She stood from behind the bush, looking up as if expecting Heero to turn on that beam rifle again. And maybe Duo should have been more concerned, as well; this _wasn't his Heero_ , after all. But while there were many things that might have been different about Heero, one essential characteristic remained: he still cared about Relena. Even though he hadn't managed that closer relationship as the one Duo had known to exist between them in his dimension, this Heero at least understood her role as the galaxy's golden child, the princess of peace. And Heero was nothing if not a soldier for peace, if only because Doctor J would never have allowed the existence of anything else. Which meant that the safest place for Relena was with the perfect soldier. So he gestured her forward, hand still held out, until Relena finally stepped around the poor plant and reached out for him.

And then Heero moved his gun and trained it – on Duo.

Duo held his breath. "Get her to safety!" he shouted. "Preventers are camped out somewhere – I'm sure you know exactly where, right? Her safety comes first. Right? Right, Heero? You still recognize that, don't you?"

Nothing. No noise, no movement. It was as if Heero had left the cockpit, even though the catch hadn't so much as twitched open. Duo finally understood that Heero was considering his options. Duo was an unknown factor still. He could be an enemy. And he knew who Heero was, and knew a little bit about him. It was setting off alarms in that automaton's mind. Duo was a liability. Hadn't the Heero Duo had known constantly said that he would eliminate all obstacles? How many times had he threatened to kill Duo? Kill Relena, until he'd understood her importance in the war effort? (Well, the peace effort, but whatever.) How many times? The only thing that had stopped him was... well, Duo hadn't understood just what it was for a very, very long time. Not until he'd learned that Heero had emotions for him, emotions he himself had for the idiot soldier bastard.

And now here he was, dealing with Doctor J's programming (programming that had been given five more years to be perfected), and a super soldier who likely didn't feel a damn thing for him.

He needed to make himself useful. Like yesterday.

"I'm going to clean up back here and make sure no one goes after her," he said. It would work in two ways – one, to make him, if nothing else, a useful ally, at least for the moment. And it would allow him to go back and help Carter with whatever he might need. If he was even still alive.

But Relena stopped him from leaving with a hard grip on his arm – and he hadn't expected a hard anything from her; she was usually gentle all the time, like she was holding eggshells whenever she touched someone. This Relena, apparently, was nothing like that, either. He had to stop comparing this one to the other one; it was clear they were nothing like one another. "No," she said, as if he hadn't already stopped trying to turn away. "You're injured. And I need you with me." She looked up at him, and if it hadn't been so _demanding_ , he might have called it a glare. "I know you to be an ally of mine. You saved my life. I need you there with me in case anything else happens."

She was suspicious of Heero. Duo's jaw nearly dropped. But hadn't he _just_ told himself not to compare the two Relenas? Even though it was downright creepy to see a Relena who didn't have hero worship stars in her eyes. Very, very creepy.

He wanted to tell her she could trust Heero. But the problem was, he didn't know. He thought it was definite that Heero would protect her, but did he really _know?_ Did he really know anything at all about this Heero, other than that he was very angry, very volatile, and very willing to leave an unconscious Duo behind in the middle of a battlefield? And didn't all of that equate to 'someone you really probably shouldn't trust much at all?'

So he looked up, waiting to see if Heero would blast the hell out of him. But he didn't think he would. If pretty princess Relena demanded Duo be brought along, what would Heero do? Bodily drag her away? (Actually, that might happen.) Knock her unconscious and _then_ kill Duo? (Also possible, actually.) Kill Duo and just take Relena, willing or no? (Okay, he needed to stop imagining scenarios; they were depressing him.)

He jumped about a foot in the air when Wing Zero bent down, blocking out the sun entirely, and held out a hand.

He nearly shot at the damn fingers.

Well. ...well. He cleared his throat and led Relena forward, barely remembering to look around them as he helped her clamor aboard. He was so used to handing the reins over to Heero whenever the man was around, it went against everything he was to keep his guard up, both against any arriving enemies and against Heero himself. (But it was a different Heero. Different, different, different... he needed to work on this.)

He almost expected Heero to curl the fingers up around Relena and just leave him behind in the remains of the Sanc estate yard, but Heero waited for him to grab on beside Relena and duck her down against the oncoming wind before standing. Relena made a short, aborted sound and ducked lower in Wing's grasp, while Duo just clung on to Wing's first finger and planted his feet apart before looking over the town.

The destruction seemed minor from up above. A few roads were demolished, little more than cracks and tilted ramps, traffic lights and stop signs lost in the rubble of the asphalt. Some buildings tilted precariously, and Duo could already see police cars and fire engines converging on those sites. People were finally starting to move; while terrified citizens fled their homes, the looters and raiders would soon be along to take their possessions while the police were busy with saving lives.

But other than the handful of buildings and roads, only a few places actually showed smoke and fire, most along those roads' paths. Only one fire hydrant gushed water in a spout along the destroyed road. And as Wing Zero took them higher into the sky and pulled them through, the destruction quickly dissipated. The battle, for all that the mobile suits had flown all over the sky, had remained, for the most part, in only one section of the city. That meant most of the civilians were safe. Several more would have been able to safely flee the area, or hunker down during the worst of it. Only one other area showed destruction, and it was a fair ways from the rest of the carnage. A mobile suit, tattered and torn into pieces, had crushed small buildings and what appeared to be a children's park beneath its bulk. And slightly beside that, what appeared to be three others left unworkable, though predominantly whole, sitting uselessly on top of what had once been a furniture warehouse. Boxes of unassembled furniture sat overflowing around the legs of the machines.

Behind them, almost hidden, was Deathscythe.

Duo hitched in a breath. The wind from Wing's travel yanked it away before Relena could hear, but still Duo looked at her, afraid that she would see his reaction. She couldn't see her protector afraid. Not if he expected her to continue holding together as well as she was. (Though, again, he had no idea if she was the type to freak out easily; that, at least, had been something the other Relena hadn't done much. Much.) But maybe this one was different. How would he know?

Deathscythe looked like it had taken a bad hit along its right leg. A rifle beam? A saber? The burn looked to be caused by one or the other, but it was hidden behind the other mobile suits too much for him to be able to fully discern the cause. How was the other him? Had something happened to the cockpit, as well? Why else would Deathscythe be lying out there, in the open, for anyone to get to? Screw that ridiculous 'no one can pilot it but its assigned owner' bollocks; there was something horribly wrong with leaving it unprotected. It made everything in him itch. He wanted down there. He wanted to check the hatch, ensure it was latched up properly. Get it somewhere. Hide it. Protect it.

He gripped Wing's finger tight beneath his palm, feeling the cool metal curl a little more, as if in answer to his touch. He looked over to find Relena had only just barely pulled up from her crouch within the suit's hold, her gaze peering out from between the fingers to look down on her kingdom. Her eyes were squinted, her lips pursed. At least she was still Relena enough to see the destruction, not the lack thereof that he was focused on. While he saw only what had been spared, she saw the lost homes, the fleeing citizens, the ruined buildings.

Good. She needed to still be herself at the heart of her, or else the vitality of her existence would have been lost. And as much as she drove him absolutely nuts, that old Relena had been the best thing to ever happen to the solar system.

Of course, if this Relena still had that part of the old Relena in her, then she would beat out that girl by miles. At least this one understood Duo's jokes.

Duo first noticed where they were headed as something like a gray dot formed ahead in the distance. Like an airplane, only Duo got the impression it was much further away, and thus much more impressive. He thought of old sci-fi movies with floating castle-like fortresses and nearly burst into laughter. But the thing they were headed toward wasn't shaped like a building, but instead like... well, like a boat, only up in the air. He thought again of sci-fi movies, of UFO's, and maybe, just once, of weird techy movies that had floating airports or something, with hangars and bunkers for soldiers, and would have laughed again if the thing ahead of them wasn't starting to take on that exact shape. Instead his jaw dropped. That sort of technology was highly unlikely and, really, very, very flashy. Stupid-flashy.

It had to be Preventers. No. No, it had to be schizo-ass Une. Who the hell else? She probably saw it in one of the movies flitting hazily through the back of his mind and had decided, 'you know, I'm gonna have me some of that.'

He wondered what it was called. Something cheesy, probably. Cheesy and Preventers-patriotic. So doubly cheesy, then.

Duo could make out a little more as they got closer. The gray got lengthier, though not much wider than a couple of Gundams lying head to foot against one another. People walked around along the edges, where tall metal banisters kept them from tumbling to their deaths. Their hair was short, even the woman Duo saw as they got near enough to land. A couple of doors jutted up from the belly of the aircraft (because what the hell was it even _called?_ ), and the woman he'd noticed earlier hurried through one of them as Wing Zero hovered above the ship. Further along the carrier's – ha! That's what it should be called! – along the carrier's thin ends sat what looked to be a thin jet, only a bit too baggy – used for slight transport, then. And beyond that, being lowered into the deep bottom of the ship, Altron. Wufei was on-board, then. Duo didn't know if that was a reason to lower his guard, however. Wufei was known for a couple of grievous errors in judgment (coughMaremaiasnort).

Heero hovered for quite some time; the man was obviously checking the ship himself for any signs of enemies, or maybe setting up to blow the thing up, or prepare for such a necessity, or something – maybe making a list of the people he intended to kill for being liabilities or enemies or whatever else J had indoctrinated into the man's skull. But eventually, after so many minutes Relena seemed to get comfortable with their position, he finally moved to land. Relena clutched tight to one of the fingers, hugging it between her arms. Duo bent his legs, nearly crying at the pain lancing up and down, up and down his muscles, worse now that he put more pressure on his knees as well as his ankles, moving his weight around on his fractured or broken bones. He barely waited for Wing Zero's thrusters to dim down from a hard whirring before bending down to Relena's side. She cast him a wide-eyed stare.

He didn't know why it only hit him just then that she'd never once ridden on a mobile suit's hand before. It had been ridiculously obvious, but it only snapped together _then_. His Relena had been an old hat with it all, and stupidly, he'd let himself once more blur the lines between the two. He touched her shoulder. "The suits are nothing more than shields, if used properly," he told her. "The weapons they hold are their offense. The suits themselves are just like... armor. Very large, kind of bulky armor."

She just blinked up at him. Right. Maybe that wasn't the best way to go about helping her.

"If Heero had any intention of harming you, trust me, you would have been dead long before you met me." Okay, maybe that was even worse. "He curled the fingers to ensure the wind didn't hurt you too much." Even though he hadn't been able to do anything to protect her hair. Which looked hilarious at the moment, but Duo could pretend to be diplomatic when it would save him from having to deal with Female In Panic Mode. "He wants to help you. He's surly, and violent, and downright mean. And when he glares, it feels like he's trying to sear your skin off inch by inch." He winced. "But he's a good man. Beneath all the grousing and the glaring and the... the... whatever-it-is," _indoctrination_ , "if there's even the slightest sliver of the Heero I knew within him, there is a goodness, a desire for peace, a love of freedom, a – a hero." Relena's eyes were so blue in that moment he felt like he was being pulled in by a riptide. He cleared his throat and looked away, even as he helped her to her feet. "So don't treat him too badly, okay? He's just... floundering."

Relena nodded.

He looked down. It wasn't that much of a jump from the palm down to the ship's surface, but he still hesitated. Just shuffling his feet forward brought sharp stabs of pain, and with the adrenaline in his system pretty much gone, the pain was taking over. Relena looked to the ground back to him, then up to Wing Zero's face, even though Heero had sensors around the cockpit to see if someone stared at him where he sat. Duo, of course, didn't look at all. It was downright confusing to see Wing Zero and know someone other than _his_ Heero was in there.

And the Relena who wasn't _his_ Relena grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. She gave him a small smile and sat down on the edge of the palm, clearly ready to slide off instead of hop down.

It was for his benefit, and he beamed a grin at her for it. This way Heero would think Duo was doing the same for Relena's benefit, not for his own. Right then, showing weakness to Heero would not be a very good idea. This Heero was not the one who considered the other pilots his allies, let alone friends or family. If he thought Duo was about to drag him down, he would eliminate him.

And so it was that Relena bumped her way down to the ship first, and Duo, hand in hers, did the same shortly thereafter. He managed to control himself enough to not stumble or pull his weight from his injured leg, but he couldn't help the tight flash of a grimace over his features. And of course Heero would have been watching. He could only hope Heero didn't decide to use the beam saber. Relena was awfully close, after all. Maybe he'd just open the cockpit and shoot him. Duo hurried Relena forward. "Where's Une?" he asked of the closest person, who seemed to be watching Wing Zero as if the self-destruct alarm had sounded.

The man gave Duo a wide-eyed stare for a good three seconds before managing a little, "you don't have permission–"

"Permission override! Access granted!" Duo said, ignoring the pain stabbing stabbing stabbing at his legs to lead Relena to the door he'd seen the random woman walk through earlier. Some sort of machine kicked into high gear, whirring like a damn cabling winch. The Altron was pulled backward, still lying down on its back. A giant gate opened up behind it. He pretended the noise made it impossible to hear the man making aborted sounds of distress. Relena caught up with him, though, and he saw her raising a hand to hide another giggle.

Well, there was another thing this Relena and his had in common: they never broke the rules. This one, however, seemed to be a bit more lenient on the subject that the one he'd known.

(Just think of them as two separate people, both acting as leaders of world peace, whose names were both Relena.)

Basic rules applied, apparently, even in Preventers Airborne Headquarters, because him walking around like he owned the place garnered him zero odd looks. He did, however, get a couple of stares as people realized who was tagging along behind him, staring wide-eyed at every single thing they passed, from the white-washed metal walls of the ship to the people passing with military focus to the weird neon lines that glowed sometimes and, yeah, Duo stared at those, too.

Only a few people bothered looking at him for clearance until the neon lights flickered red, and then _everyone_ turned to stare at him. They'd made it down a number of hallways, Duo simply using the 'follow the crowd' mentality. The only problem now was that the crowd seemed to be honing in on him. Relena, not even remotely oblivious to the change, curled a little closer to his back. In the end, he lifted his chin, curled a hand back to cover Relena as best he could, and held his gun on the nearest Preventer. Every single other person in the hall – and that was far more than it had been a few moments ago – pulled out their own, each and every one aiming straight for his head.

"Well."

Duo turned to the voice, his brows rising up to his hairline. "Wait. Weren't you supposed to be over at the colony place?"

Une tilted her head. "Hm. You really do look a lot like him. I suppose you're Junior."

"Gods dammit, I – no, dammit, I'm – well, yes, I'm the one he's talking about," he said when Une's finger tightened around her gun. "But that's not my name! I'm Duo. Just Duo. Yes, like him. Same name. That geezer!" His lip curled back in a snarl. He nearly stamped his foot. Thank everything, he didn't, because that would have ended very poorly for him. "Calling me that to _Une,_ of all people – uh, no offense to you personally, of course. I think."

"Miss Darlian," Une said, nodding over Duo's head as if he was nothing more than a human-shaped obstruction. Though, actually, that was what he was trying to be at the moment. "I'm glad to see you're unharmed. Please come with me, and we'll get you comfortable."

"No," Relena said, and Une blinked at the flat-out refusal. Duo sent her a look, wondering if she didn't feel safe with Une. Or maybe had an issue with the woman pointing guns at people? But if that was the case, shouldn't she have a problem with Duo, with his gun pointed at a random Preventer lady's head? And then she said, "I'm staying with him. He's the one I trust here."

For one split second, Duo was afraid he was going to let his jaw hang off his skull in front of Une. But his lips twisted into too big a smirk for that. Thankfully. "Well! You heard the lady!" He clapped his hands together. "So weren't you supposed to be helping somewhere else?"

"We came back," Une said. Her lips twisted as she glared at Duo. "Put away your gun."

"Yeah, no. We're a little outnumbered here. You put _yours_ down first." And he made certain that Une couldn't get a good shot at Relena. Because, if he was really trying to think of these guys as just people with the same names, then it would be stupid to trust Une with anything simply because she happened to be this dimension's equivalent of the Une he'd known. "You, and about half these agents, can disarm yourselves before I'll even think about letting you do anything. Also, you lost every man guarding her. Save maybe one. But I left him behind for her. And if he's dead, I just might shoot one of you anyway. For stress-relief. I _liked_ Carter."

Another, larger grimace, and Une lowered her arm. "Shoot any of my men, _Junior_ , and no amount of cajoling on Miss Darlian's part will save you."

Well, at least something hadn't changed. He gave her his shit-eating grin and shrugged. "Then you'd better hope Carter's all right."

Duo felt Relena moving from behind him and gently stopped her. He looked around the hall; the people holding guns on him were all over, from the edges of the hall, where the corridor turned right or left, up to just a couple of meters away. Duo didn't bother looking back around; he knew exactly when Une nodded to her men. Slowly, even slower, perhaps, than Une, those farther away – those who would potentially have a harder shot – lowered their weapons. Wow, gee, Une, thanks for exploiting that loophole. He looked at the woman at the end of his barrel. She didn't even look afraid. If nothing else, she looked furious. Like she took becoming his target as some sort of personal slight. She probably wasn't a fan of the idea of damsels of distress.

Duo finally lowered his gun – but kept it clenched tight in his hand. "Lead the way," he said, still keeping Relena carefully shielded with his own body. "Why did you come back?" he asked, even as Une ushered three agents – one of whom being the one Duo had held his gun to, and yeah, that woman was going to hold a grudge – lined up, one with Une in front of them and two behind. Duo did not turn into the procession like he knew Une expected. He would not be marched between enemies. Potential enemies. Well. People who weren't enemies at all, really, or he wouldn't have brought Relena here, but plainly people who didn't understand that Duo was still on a combat high.

"The others were more a ruse than anything else. Every battle was much easier than they should have been – except for the one here." She waved a hand generally to encompass Sanc, and then she started walking. Duo ushered Relena to his left, clear of the guards, and placed himself a bit more between the guards so they could move with minimal difficulty. It left Relena more vulnerable, but there wasn't much he could do about that. At least he was pretty sure that, even if Une was out for his blood, she wouldn't harm Relena. Almost certain, really. Except that he couldn't help but remember that this Une had been with Treize for an extra five years, and he had no idea what had happened in that time, and she might have undergone even bigger changes than, well, than growing an extra personality. But she was still in charge of Preventers, so that was something, wasn't it? And she'd been polite enough to Relena when she'd arrived (possibly a ruse, but he didn't think so.)

But none of that mattered, because he was still riding a battle high, and he didn't think he could come down off it when being led like a prisoner through an airborne base. So he was left pulling Relena by his side, his sidearm switched to his left arm, his eyes scanning the structure.

The next number of halls all looked the same as the first few he'd traveled down, the metal untouched by anything save that line across the upper-middle of the walls, glowing a darker blue than they had when Duo had first entered the thing. It had to be some sort of a code, but he wasn't sure what it could be. Shouldn't they have different colors altogether? Or did they have only slight fluctuations so that enemies couldn't easily tell what was happening? Or was it something else? Another one of those weird technological jumps that made his brain twist?

But then the halls started changing, and new things started appearing on the walls. More lines, and these were all sorts of different colors – green, purple, orange, and one this really awful chartreuse thing. He stared at it, wondering if that color had actually been chosen willingly for something, or if it had been the last available, and _that_ was why they had dark blue, because they'd run out of colors for whatever it was and had been left with shitty chartreuse, and someone had put their foot down and said, "that's enough."

Little speaker-like gadgets started dotting the walls, too, and something like an air vent, tiny and circular, hung up on the ceiling, and then they finally reached some sort of hub. Duo glanced around, expecting to have been brought to some security area, or maybe some rooms where Une could put them on lockdown. But there was nothing but normal personnel, roaming about their business in that militaristic 'ordered chaos' fashion. No one even bothered looking at them. As if leading someone around like prisoners was an everyday occurrence for them.

Well, Une was their leader, so maybe it was?

Then Duo took a closer look and tensed. While he might be slow enough to only be just now realizing that the airborne fortress was actually a freaking _spaceship_ , he should at least have been able to realize that they'd been led to the spaceship's equivalent of a sick bay. No wonder they didn't even look up – they must have dealt with injured enemies being brought to them after being taken into custody. But since Duo was fine (until the next attack, at least), he couldn't guess why they were there other than 'Une was going to shoot out his kneecaps.'

And since that didn't sound all that pleasant, he started looking around for escape routes.

And saw Wufei. Sitting next to a bed.

Barely remembering to drag Relena along for the ride, he rushed into the room, pushing roughly past Une. The agents, as one, shouted and pulled out their weapons. Not that Duo thought they would be stupid enough to start firing in a freaking hospital ward, or at least he hoped not. Of course, the ruckus made Wufei stand and turn. "Ah – Junior Maxwell?"

"Goddammit, not you, too!" Duo said, but he let it go an instant later. "Is it Sally? Is she okay?"

And then he looked down, down onto the bed, and his breath hissed in, but no air reached his lungs. He felt fine. He hadn't had an attack in... in a while. A long while. _Since the battle began_.

And... and there was Senior Maxwell, hooked up to an IV drip and a heart monitor and bundled and bandaged and broken, right there under the white-starched sheets of Une's floating hospital.


	7. Broken and Recovered

The other him – the older him, Senior – he lay as still as death in the hospital bed, the damn heart monitor beeping out a monotonous beat, breaking his eardrums, pulling him, every second, from the foggy, endlessly white abyss he'd fallen into.

He'd known, somehow, that showing up in this dimension would shape things in a way that would not be good. It was inevitable; it was how he lived his life. His existence in an area tended to be 'not good.' It wasn't like he believed in curses or anything, just – after Solo, and Father Maxwell, and Sister Helen, and the doctors, and the pilots, and his entire damn universe – well, he kind of got the feeling that, if Death didn't traipse around in his shadow like a lost puppy, then he certainly enjoyed vacationing wherever Duo stayed. Coming here, seeing this peaceful, nearly lackadaisical dimension, some part of him had known. 'Not good.' Death had been pulled through with him.

Oh, he'd imagined otherwise. Told himself he could do _good_ here, that he could _help_ , because at least, when he and his shadow Death got pulled through, they'd been _merged_ , and he was _dying_. And that wasn't a sad thought, not at all; he'd lived his life, pushed through, fought back, done everything he could. And more than he'd thought was downright, absolutely impossible. And hey, not to be a martyr or a whiner or anything, but everyone else he'd known or cared about, or known and cared about, they were all very, _very_ dead. So it wasn't like he was going to lose anything, or cause anyone else to lose anything, by his death. So it would all work out. He could get the pilots together, help out against this Sloan douche, and go hug dirt six feet under.

How laughably naïve of him. How laughably, horridly naïve. And here was the other him, paying the price. Pushing up what Duo should have been pushing up. _Daisies_.

 _This_ was why the pain hadn't returned. _This_ was why he'd been able to fight through the battlefield and protect Relena without once feeling even the tiniest sliver of pain. Even before he opened his mouth and asked, "when?" he already knew how Wufei would answer. And he was not disappointed.

"Not long into the battle. A number of the suits just ganged up on him the moment he came to assist Yuy. I don't know what happened – his right leg didn't react in time to block the attack, and the thing nearly got ripped right off."

And, Duo supposed, that had been the end of that. Because the other him, who shouldn't have been out on a damn battlefield with his gimpy leg, had gotten caught on his bad side and just... just...

Duo took a deep breath. Shook. He nearly jumped out of his damn skin when Relena grabbed his free hand – and good grief, he'd actually lost himself while holding a loaded gun in his hand – and squeezed tight. "How bad?" he asked, and his throat felt dry as the desert.

"His leg is... well, it's bad. Three breaks and a fracture, and the muscles were ripped to shreds. There was apparently a lot of blood loss, as well. Though the doctors say he should be waking soon." And Duo leaned over as if proximity alone could make it happen, could transfer whatever the hell was sifting from Senior to him _back where it belonged,_ dammit. But of course there was nothing, nothing Duo could see or feel. And the other him didn't wake up.

Something happened behind them. Something loud. It pulled Relena to the edge of his grip as she turned to look. Duo nearly gripped her hand hard enough to break, and only something unspoken inside him, something that said she was his _friend_ , stopped him.

And then she pulled away a little bit, tugging at his own center of balance, and he stumbled, and the pain – oh, he was almost thankful for it, for the adrenaline that had been carrying him to die down in his horror, for his legs to buckle, and for him to fall. Relena yelped.

"Maxwell?!"

Duo crashed onto the metal floor, and there was a louder clatter as nurses and doctors scrambled. Relena pressed closely to his side. Someone called out a warning, and an alarm went up. Which he thought was a ridiculous overreaction; he was on the ground, in obvious pain, clearly disabled, and she was turning on the damn alarm like he'd gone berserk on the hospital staff.

Then he searched through watery eyes and caught not just Wufei staring at him as the doctors rushed in, but also Heero Yuy. And, _oh_. Clearly it was because of him. Duh.

"Maxwell? Is it another attack?" Wufei asked, and Duo just grimaced at the reminder. How could he tell Wufei that he was leeching the life from the other him like some sort of vampire? But, well, at least the whole falling thing was explainable, because Relena piped up.

"He jumped out a second story window with me. He probably hurt himself – but what do you mean, 'another attack?'" And oh, no, he was not going to have Relena and, oh, gods, _Heero_ , learn of his illness, or lack thereof, or anything else that might make him seem even weaker.

"What do you mean, 'with you?'" Wufei asked, thankfully pulling her attention away from the question she herself had asked.

"He had her on his back. She flinched as they reached the ground, tipping his descent pattern. He injured both ankles and likely knees in the fall," Heero said, his voice clipped and short and empty. Reciting information. And, oh, well, Duo supposed Heero might have seen their jump from his position in the sky. And that meant Heero had seen Duo's injuries. Maybe that was why Heero had moved as if to kill Duo? But why let him go? Did Heero consider him a weak target? He blinked over at the man, but of course, his blue eyes were completely empty of emotion. Devoid of life. Dead. Other words that meant the same thing.

Duo missed his Heero with a sharp, broken pang.

"I'm fine," he said, and it wasn't just habit that had him saying it. But it seemed like the doctors and nurses had figured out a way to slide past Heero without inciting his wrath, and they bustled into the room and circled around him like white vultures. Duo glared at the lot of them. "Go away."

But Relena, damn her wretched pink heart, said, "he's hurt his legs," and then, "I'm staying with him. I won't let you hurt him," as if she had any control over that, any at all. And Heero's eyes narrowed. There was no way Heero had entered the Preventers floating headquarters for any reason other than to protect Relena. Which meant Heero had to stay with her to ensure she didn't end up getting hurt trying to protect her supposed protector. Yeah. His days were numbered.

Which was good, he reminded himself. And as he'd told his Heero once before, if he was going to die, he would rather it be by Heero's hands.

Which was morbid. And unhealthy. And stupid.

The doctors ganged up on him, though, and while he could easily have thrown them all off him, he didn't think that would go well for an alliance between the Gundam pilots and Preventers. So he snarled and griped and nearly bit someone stupid enough to try to touch his neck, but otherwise let them pull him onto a stretcher (god, the _humiliation_ ) and take him into another room. His heart jackhammered throughout it all, though, knowing the injuries weren't severe, but knowing they would want to anesthetize him. Knowing that the injuries weren't fatal. Knowing he would survive.

Gods, he would survive, and Death's Hand might actually let him go. As usual. Take someone else, but leave Duo hopelessly alive. Solor. Father. Sister. Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, Heero, Relena. His entire world. And now he'd brought this plague into an entirely new dimension.

He wasn't self-absorbed. He wasn't. But if this peaceful dimension fell, as well, then the only common denominator he could find would be him. Well. Him. And humans. And maybe it was just their way, to burn themselves to death.

Wufei demanded to know if it was another attack, and that sent Relena and the damn doctors into a tizzy. Duo glared murder at the man. Thankfully, he let it go.

He refused anything but a local anesthetic, and while he was sniping and snapping, Heero just watched with a dark, hooded gaze, keeping his body angled between the doctors and Relena, who watched with wide eyes from the sidelines as the doctors quickly checked his ankles – fracture and bad sprain, potential fracture – and his knees – badly sprained and merely bruised – her fingers curled around each other in some strange nervous tic. Duo found himself almost floating despite having carefully watched the doctors' drug usage. He ended up having to rely on a Wufei he didn't quite know, and Relena who knew next to nothing about watching over a soldier, and a Heero who glared out from beneath lowered lashes whenever he turned his gaze on Duo.

It was a long, long time before they finally bandaged him up, both ankles in air casts and strict orders to not take them off, which meant running would be far more annoying than usual. Relena's damn eyes were teared up. Like, actual, full-blown tears. It was ridiculous.

"So hey," he said, his brain only tripping over itself slightly, "what about 'Scythe?"

He remembered seeing its forgotten remains on the city streets. It wasn't right, leaving him unguarded like that.

"Scythe?" Wufei asked. Then, a moment later, "you mean the Gundam?"

Duo gave Wufei a droll look. "No, I mean an actual scythe. I carry it around with me for good luck."

"Well, I suppose you shouldn't have dropped it, then," Wufei said, faster than Duo might even have expected from _his_ Wufei. He blinked up at the man. "The Gundam, on the other hand, is likely already on-board, or in the process of being brought on-board. Don't worry. We won't let anything happen to him."

For a second Duo's thought derailed, not certain if they were still on the same topic, what with that _him_ there at the end. But he nodded, anyway. When in doubt, pretend you understand. "Okay. And Wing?"

Heero tensed. Wufei shifted his position by Duo, suddenly becoming some sort of shield, a buffer between Duo and Heero. And he replied, "Yuy has locked us out, and set the Gundam on self-destruct if anyone touches it. The explosion could wipe out the entire air base."

Relena's eyes widened, but Duo only chuckled. "Of course. How silly of me." With his thumb, he touched the ring on his finger. "At least he's here to make sure that, should some idiot Preventer not follow the clear instructions, Miss Pea... Darlian won't be hurt." He smiled winningly at Heero. The man's glare could have shot ice picks into his skull.

Relena sent a disbelieving look Heero's way. Wufei sent one to Duo, as if not only could he not believe Duo's words, but he also couldn't believe how stupid he was for saying them.

"How's the other me?" he asked, trying to ignore the looks for now. Wufei's lips thinned. Obviously, in order to find out, someone would have to leave. None of them would be thrilled with the prospect of Relena leaving their lines of sight to find out, and Heero – well, Heero certainly wasn't going to bother. Finding out would mean having Wufei leave, and leaving Duo vulnerable to anything Heero wanted to try. And it wouldn't matter how many agents Une attempted to post unassumingly in the hall, Heero could kill him ten ways to Sunday before the agents could do more than peek around inside.

Maybe it was the odd influence of Sally on his life, but Wufei wasn't willing to just abandon Duo to Heero's oh-so-tender mercies. The man's jaw actually locked at the idea.

"You know," Duo said on a sigh, "Heero has zero reason to kill me right now. Even injured, it's clear I'm willing to help Relena at the cost of my life. And it's even clearer that I'm not a threat to him. So that makes me a potential asset, and certainly not a threat. As I said. No reason to go all Perfect Soldier on me." Wufei's look seemed lost between amazed at Duo's potential idiocy and surprised by how nearly logical Duo's words must have sounded. Heero, on the other hand, had suddenly gone completely blank. His 'does not compute' face.

He clenched his hand into a fist, until the sides of the ring pressed hard into his first and ring fingers.

Relena sat on the edge of the hospital bed and smoothed the blankets over him. Her eyes weren't as open and decipherable as the one from his world, but it was still easy enough to see she was battling some decision about him, and about Heero. Her gaze played along the edge of the sheets. She actually plucked at them.

Wufei sighed, one short sound of aggravation, and glared at Heero in some sort of silent warning that, surprise, surprise, Heero blithely ignored, and turned on his heel and left.

Relena leaned a bit closer to him, as if to act as his shield.

"You're dying," Heero said, and his clipped voice held no emotion, not pity or triumph or sorrow. While Relena looked up to Duo with wide eyes, Heero's were dead. Dead calm, dead serious, dead bored.

Duo should have known better than to think he could hide anything from Heero. Of course the man was going to put it all together. Duo had been dealing with an attack from Death's Hand when he'd shown up on Yuy's doorstep, after all. It may very well have contributed to the reason why Heero just left him behind (although Heero, the old Heero, had had that exact same nasty habit, so maybe not). But with Wufei's hint of 'an attack' and Duo collapsing suddenly being nearly taken in stride as such, how could the man not piece it together? He wasn't stupid. (Anything but, unfortunately.) And despite how he acted, he was actually pretty damn good at reading people.

Duo reached out and squeezed Relena's hand, because the woman looked about two seconds from crying, and if that happened, he might just go AWOL. "Yeah," he said, making his tone light. Something flashed in those deep blue eyes, but he didn't have the time to look into it. He was too busy trying to keep Relena from freaking out. The only problem was that he was not, in any way, preventing it. Big, fat tears burst from her eyes despite his hold on her hand, and she curled around his fingers as if in prayer.

"No!" she said, as if they were besties who had known each other for years. He just blinked at her. This... this was _not_ any Relena he had known.

Very, very awkwardly, he patted her head. "There, there," he said, because that was what people said on tv and he had no personal experience with this sort of thing. Panic gripped him. He thought he would rather prefer some assassin climbed into the room right about now. In pure panic mode, he actually sent Heero a desperate look. The man's face was still carefully blank, and it seemed as if he'd mentally distanced himself from them. Okay. Great. That meant he was on his own. Bastard.

"Uh, Relena...?" The whole 'there, there' thing usually settled the person in the television show down. And yeah, granted, the battle scenes were usually so outlandishly ridiculous it was clear the writers had never been in a fight in their whole lives, but still. He'd really needed this one to be on the ball. Hadn't any of those writers ever had some hysterical woman sobbing all over them before?

He nearly cried himself when he felt the tension grow in Relena's back and shoulders as she tried to rein herself in. "Sorry," she mumbled into his sheet-covered leg. He heard her struggle to take deep breaths. She sniffled loudly. Cleared her throat. Rubbed her eyes with the sheet. Sniffled some more. When she finally looked up, she was in control again, but her eyes and nose were red. She had to clear her throat one more time before she could say, "I'm sorry I lost control like that."

Duo had absolutely no idea where this whole bonding thing was coming from, but he wasn't going to make a big deal out of it if he could. "It's fine. It's actually... and yes, I know I sound stupid and mean saying it, but it's nice to have someone left who would mourn me." He touched the ring with his thumb again, then shrugged. "My dimension... even if I went back, there's nothing left."

She frowned, and he found himself having to go over the whole 'I'm from another dimension' thing in far more detail. She listened, rapt, as he told her just the bare bones of it – the remains of White Fang, the Alliance bases, the destruction. Wufei came in, but when he heard Duo's tale, he leaned back beside the door, perpendicular to Heero, and listened, so Duo figured the news he brought was, if not good, then not bad. He kept his stories of his losses vague, just mentioned them dying off one by one. Her eyes got all sad and droopy then, anyway, so it was for the best that he moved on. He kept one eye on Heero, having wished to keep all this from him, either afraid of being thought a weakness or of being considered expendable, but Heero didn't so much as twitch during the entire damn story. Even when he went on about trying to go back in time to warn his world by building a shower stall TARDIS with little more than _a_ laptop (he did not mention that it was Heero's). Finally, Relena leaned back slightly, at the end of his story, and said, "so you were doomed from the start."

Duo shrugged. "I was already doomed. This just bought me some extra time." When Relena gave him a disbelieving look, he said, "no. Really. I had White Fang members busting down the door when I made the trip here. I would literally have been dead a minute later."

Her eyes widened all over again. He supposed he was probably breaking everything she knew about the universe. Another look toward Heero confirmed he hadn't moved. Wufei's eyes had closed during the retelling, and he looked to Duo now with a slitted gaze, as if gauging him. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

It was actually a good question. "I'm looking for all the pilots," he said, filling the silence with noise while he wondered just what it was he was going to do. It was plain he couldn't let the other him die. But how could he stop it? The obvious answer poked immediately into his head, and he balked. The very last thing he wanted to do was give up and die. Being forced into it by Death's Hand? Sure; no big deal. But choosing it? Putting a gun to his head, or cutting his wrists, or poisoning himself? That spoke against everything he was. He _survived_. That was his job. What was the point of living if he just decided to throw in the towel partway through?

He rambled about wanting to get the pilots together, about remembering the camaraderie that came from people who _knew_ , without words, just what it meant to be a Gundam pilot. The sacrifices that traveled past the physical and scraped jagged scars in places you didn't even know you had to hurt. That slitted gaze of Wufei's closed off for a moment. Because yeah, certainly even he had to know that, no matter how well he and Sally might fit in this dimension, there were things the woman could never understand.

"Was there another me?" Relena asked.

Duo nodded. "There was. But she was nothing like you." He frowned. "Well, there were elements that were the same. But that's it. You didn't like me, for one thing."

She leaned back. "All this is odd enough, but that? Is ridiculous. Another dimension, and one in which you and I didn't get along?" She shook her head. "That's stupid."

She actually looked sad. "The very fact that you're calling something stupid is making my brain twist up," he admitted. "You were always so politic. And you actually really liked Heero, not me."

Even though he'd something to that effect to her before, she still cast a dubious glance over her shoulder to Heero. "Right," she said.

"Seriously. You had a crush on him, I swear. According to Heero – who would have absolutely zero reasons to lie about it – you even danced with him." She turned those balloon eyes back on while Heero glared promises of bloody murder.

The dubious shock grew to outright disbelief. Wufei coughed.

He was ready for the pain of the memories. What he hadn't expected was the catharsis. Speaking to his new friends about his old ones somehow soothed. Maybe it was because these people seemed closer to him than even the ones he'd known back home. Because they were willing to accept him? Because they'd lived in peace long enough to have mellowed out some? Or perhaps it was because they were listening like friends would, with open ears and a willingness to mock.

In the end, he didn't know what it was. But it was nice.

He sent another look to Wufei, and he suddenly wondered if it was all right to want this, to enjoy it, when the reason he'd gotten them all together wasn't for himself, but for the other him. The one who might very well be dying off thanks to his very existence as they spoke.

"No change," Wufei said, reading Duo's mind somehow. "The doctors say he should wake up any time now."

Which meant the other him should have already woken up, unless these doctors actually knew how to care for a Gundam pilot. Which, okay, he thought, looking at Wufei, maybe they did.

He hoped the other him woke up without a problem, but he didn't think it likely. That wouldn't work out for him, would it? Of course, it made sense that two Duos couldn't live in the same universe together. How many scientists had theorized that the very act of such would destroy the two, or at least one of them? That was why it made sense for him to end up dying. Basic knowledge, right? But he'd gotten overconfident, thinking the universe would just take care of the problem for him. Maybe he needed to be proactive. The universe never gave one rat's rear who died. It never cared more for the young than for the old, more for the wise than the dumb, more for the good than the evil. If he took too long to died, then why not just take the other one? Wasn't it just one half dozen the other?

So what should he do? He looked down at the sheets folded neatly over his injured legs. He'd hoped that entering the battle would help others, but maybe he needed to focus on it for another reason. If he couldn't kill himself, then he would have to put himself in a situation where he would get killed. It would be cowardly, and reckless, and stupid. It could also backfire in a hundred different ways. After all, what had changed the circumstances this time? Had the other him's injury made him weaker, and thus the universe decided Duo would be better than his weaker counterpart? In which case, shouldn't his injuries have traded Death's Hand back to him? Unless the other him's accident, in which he'd nearly lost his leg, was worse, and he was still weaker. So Duo would have to make sure he got hurt worse than his counterpart, at the very least...

But what if doing so exacerbates the issue with the other him instead of resolving it? No. In the end, it was death or nothing. Anything less might not work.

It burned just thinking about going through with it. And how could he even ensure that another battle took place? The first had failed spectacularly. Sloan had been defeated on both fronts. If nothing else, the man would have to regroup and come up with a new strategy. Which meant the pilots and Preventers had plenty of time to hunt the moron down and tidy everything up. This would all be over soon.

Duo looked over to Relena. It wasn't fair to use her, but sticking with her would be his best chance to ensure he went down fighting instead of blowing his brains out. If, of course, killing himself even prevented anything at all. But thinking that would lead him down a spiral, so he let that thought go.

Relena patted Duo's knee, bringing him back from his morbid plans. "He'll be fine. The doctors wouldn't give you false hope."

He let himself give her a small smile and a nod, but inwardly all he could think was, _we'll see._

The chatter died down, and Duo could see a rift between them. While Relena and Wufei leaned toward him, they also went so far as to turn in a way that immediately excluded Heero from the group. Relena had decided to turn her back on him completely, while Wufei had a shoulder turned from Heero. It left the man alone even with all of them in the room together. And yet (and again, no surprise here), Heero didn't seem to mind in the slightest. The man's kept his arms crossed and his narrowed gaze on Duo. Duo had no clue what was going on in the man's head. All he could tell was that Heero was thinking hard on something, and he didn't necessarily like what he was figuring out. He also found that, more often than not, that icy stare was leveled o him – his face, his hair, his wrists, his chest, his neck. Duo wondered if he was gauging the level of Duo's weaknesses and injuries, or if he was looking for the myriad of ways to kill Duo and listing them out in some sort of order – easiest to hardest, maybe, or those more likely to look accidental.

Duo didn't know how to destroy that divide. Heero seemed pretty damn content to not get involved, and Duo didn't honestly know the level of fucked up Heero had become. He'd been with J for another five years though, so he knew it had to be pretty bad. Maybe he could bring that up to Wufei somehow? And maybe Relena, too. Or Quatre. Yes. Quatre would be the best one. The man was different in this world, but he had to have at least a shred of the empathy he'd had before. He'd accepted the two Maxwells easily enough, after all. Maybe he could help bring everyone together, the way Duo had originally planned the man to.

His thoughts were once again cut off as sharp heels clacked against the tile outside the room. Wufei straightened slightly. Heero slouched a little more – likely preparing to strike if Une pissed him off in any way. Relena just turned to the door, though there was a set in her shoulders that said she expected trouble.

Une had her hair wrapped in a tight bun, Duo noted idly as she entered. It wasn't quite the style he was used to. He wondered what was different about this one, whether she'd had that psychotic break when Treize died.

Then she turned her steely gaze on him, and he decided he didn't care. Why did everyone have it out for _him?_ "Duo Maxwell, Jr."

"Oh, no, no, no," he said, wagging his hand. "I'm not responding to any questions as _Junior_ , I don't care what the other me says."

She just glared at him, Unfortunately for her, Heero was in the same room, and really, no one should try to compete with that. "A man named Howard has been asking for you."

Duo perked up. "Howard's here? Why?"

Her frown deepened. "He didn't feel fit to inform me."

Duo nudged Relena until she got up, and he swung his legs over the side. "Let me get you a wheelchair," Relena offered, and Duo snorted. He stood. It hurt, of course, but the pain was bearable and there was no way he was getting around Une's floating fortress in a damn wheelchair. Also, with Heero in his 'all obstacles must be eliminated' mentality, he would basically be painting a target on his back.

"Miss Darlian," Une said before Duo could do more than adjust to the stupid casts, "we'll need you to come with us. There are things we need to discuss, as well."

But Relena stuck out her chin and said, "I'm staying with him." Une made some sort of look (constipated, almost, and Duo had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing). Relena beat the woman to speaking by a short hair. "This man is dying and still managed to do more than your men combined."

"True," Duo said, though he wondered if it was okay to use the dying card when he felt perfectly fine. Which made him feel like shit, so he didn't bring it up. "But I would stake my life on Wufei here. And yeah, I get where you're coming from with Grumpy McGlares-a-lot over there, but Wufei's solid. He'll protect you. In hand-to-hand combat, he's got me beat every time."

Relena did not seem pleased with Duo trying to hand her off. She opened her mouth to protest.

"Look." He cut her off this time. Again, she did not look pleased. It actually reminded him of the street rats he'd grown up with, each of them trying to look strong when in reality, all of them were weak. "We need information. Une's willing to hand some out. I need to find out what Howard wants, but we need to get as much intel as possible before Sloan figures out what to do next. Splitting up right now means getting more faster."

And lo, the logic actually worked on her. Whatever had happened in this dimension, this Relena used her damn head far more than the one he'd known. Her frown, however, and the way she lifted her chin and crossed her arms, made it pretty clear what she thought of the whole thing. "Fine." And there was the petulance he actually recognized.

He grinned. "There, there, princess. You can act as bossy as you want with Une, okay? Take her down a peg or two."

Relena sniffed. "I was going to do that, anyway." And she flounced, literally flounced ,with the hair whip and everything, out of the room. Une was forced to follow, and Wufei to abandon his post as guard dog.

It left Duo alone with Heero. So maybe, perhaps, he hadn't thought that through well enough.

Heero didn't waste any time, of course; the moment the footsteps receded enough to make it plain no one was going to peek through the doorway any time soon, he stalked forward. The invisible wall that had been erected between them fell to the laser beams Heero shot from his eyes. "You're dying," he said again.

It was not like Heero to repeat information. "Uh. Yes?"

The man leaned forward, into Duo's space. Duo was not dead enough to not get a good look at older-Heero's still-bowed lips or chiseled cheekbones or olive skin. Whatever else might have changed, Heero was still flawlessly beautiful. And the heat of his body still called to Duo despite him being a different version of the man he'd loved.

Heero was silent for a long time, long enough that Duo got antsy enough to shift on his bad feet. Which hurt like a bitch. "Okay? Is there a point to this?"

Wing's pilot shifted back, those dark ocean eyes still hard on Duo's face. "All obstacles must..."

"Be eliminated," Duo said, finishing the words in sync with Heero. It earned him another dark glare. "Yeah, sorry. I knew another version of you. I've become immune to those." He waved a hand over his face to indicate Heero's top-notch glares. Another hard look, and Duo realized they could be categorized as _assessing_. The man was assessing him? For what? _Oh._ "You're freaking out because it's redundant to kill a dying man," he said, his voice dropping into something like a gasp.

"Shut up," Heero said, his voice dripping. The man actually loomed over Duo. Loomed. Over him. And he was only maybe an inch or two taller. Which meant, he thought with glee, that older version of himself was taller than older version of Heero.

"No, this is great," Duo said, slipping straight into a Shinigami grin. "You have no reason to kill me. I mean, yeah, you want to. I'm injured, I've compromised the princess by making her trust me over everybody else – which, honestly, I have no idea how I managed that – and I'm just incredibly annoying to you, right? I was to the other you, and I know _damn_ straight that much hasn't changed. But killing a dying man? That's just cruel. And dumb. Like, wow, what a waste of a bullet. So you're freaking out, because your 'must kill' override is being bumped by the logic of 'just wait a couple of weeks and the problem will resolve itself.' This is classic. Oh, this must really burn you."

Oh, if looks could kill. But they couldn't. So Duo just leaned back on his heels and taunted Heero with another one of his grins. Heero's hands actually twitched, as if he really, really wanted to reach up and strangle Duo, but he just couldn't figure out if the effort would really be worth it. Oh. This. This was too good.

"Welp, I've got somebody waiting for me," he said, and he dared to stretch right there in front of Heero like it was nothing. And Heero took a step back, his narrowed eyes almost beady but his body making absolutely no aggressive moves. Poor Heero. Fucked over by J's shitty training, confused and battered and trapped in place for a war that had ended years ago. Duo wondered if there was any chance for him now. But it was _Heero_. Surely if anyone could forge a path through, it would be the guy who could _bend metal_.

Of course, trying to be nice to this Heero would be a complete and total waste of effort. So he just gave the man a jaunty little wave and tried his hand at flouncing, too. He nearly burst into a fit of unmanly giggles when his braid smacked Heero in the face.


	8. Paradigms and Funhouse Mirrors

Apparently Howard had seen fit to make full use of being confined to his ship. Apparently the man also had no need to ever leave his ship, _ever_. Because he had hyped it up with so many weird tech that Duo could only guess what some of it was for.

The piece Howard led him to after a short greeting, however, was simple enough to name. A big, hulking computer. With three monitors. For some reason.

Duo stared at the things while Howard moved to the broken, burned-out, mangled wreck that could only be the laptop Duo had used to cross over to this dimension. For a split second he thought the old man might have some ideas on him going back to his universe, and Duo wondered if maybe that would be for the best, but Howard started off with, "there isn't much left on this thing, but I found evidence that what you've been telling us is the truth," and, well, who the hell cared about that if there was a chance they could open another damn door through dimensions?

Duo stole the chair in front of the monitors as Howard went walking back and forth, picking up wires and little flash drivey things as he went. His legs hurt like a bitch from just the simple walk from the hospital room. It was likely because they were being forced in the correct position after everything going out of whack, but still. The idea that he had a sprain wouldn't so much as phase him, bu his other foot having the tiniest of cracks – literally, it was so tiny the doctors likely had to squint to see it – somehow blew everything up into 'serious injury.' As if he hadn't gotten countless fractures just from the beatings from the merchants when he'd been a kid.

"There's very little left from the actual trip, but there's countless things from your universe," the old man said, fairly jumping at it all. Duo supposed that if he were some sort of tech junkie, he'd be excited over a time machine, too. "Pictures, videos. Music! Did you know that some of the music in your universe was never made in ours? And vice versa, of course; we've had five years of peace, after all." Duo just blinked at the man as he took the three monitors and set them up around him. He plugged in two of the flash drives. Instantly Duo saw pictures of his world's Sanc Kingdom set up on the right screen. On the left was, he could only assume, this world's Sanc. Even he could see that many of the buildings that had still existed in his world were missing from this one's. And in their places stood completely different buildings.

"Completely separate places," Howard said, even though one would have to be blind not to notice it. And the man sounded far too happy about it all. "There were more pictures, but I could only get pixelated fragments of them. "But this. This is incredible." Howard leaned down, and for an instant, Duo could see nothing but pure, unadulterated geek. "Look!" And Howard pointed to the Sanc estate.

And, oh. Because they looked exactly the same, even though one Sanc had needed to be completely remade. Duo leaned forward. "That doesn't make sense. That should have been the first thing destroyed."

"Agreed," Howard said. He zoomed in on the images until the pictures got blurry. Nothing. Nothing different. Even the damn fountain. Why hadn't Duo noticed this during the fight?

"There's something there Oz and the rest didn't want to destroy," Duo said. He bit a finger. "I should have guessed something like this. In my universe, they actually set up shop there. Zechs had to take the place back by force. They'd literally set up a freaking fortress, guns and everything. But what would they want there? I'd assumed..." He'd assumed they'd only done it as some sort of show. See how far pacifism gets you, that sort of thing. Especially since the kingdom had been seen as some sort of beacon of hope. But hadn't Heero always said that assumptions led to mistakes? In that case, Duo had made a stupid assertion. He wondered if Heero had known anything about it.

Duo sat up suddenly. "Is there anything else on Sanc in that computer? Something coded, or locked up tight as a drum?"

"Kid, almost everything on that computer is locked up tighter than a drum." Howard turned to him. "I thought it was yours?"

Duo shook his head. "No." His lips thinned. Of course, trying to hack into it would most likely cause nothing more than a complete system delete. The best option would actually be... he sighed. Loudly. "Oh, gods. I'm going to have to ask him for his help, aren't I? What are the chances I make it out of that conversation alive?"

He had just managed to slip away from Heero, and now he had to slink back and ask the man for a huge, awkward favor. 'Hey, could you maybe use your own secret passwords and overrides to unlock this computer that the other you owned from my dimension? Pretty please?' Yeah. That would go over just swell.

He groaned.

* * *

"No."

Duo sighed. He was not even remotely surprised by this. "Look, Heero–"

"No."

He could understand. Really, he could. It was a breach of security, first of all; someone could be monitoring what passcodes or algorithms he used. It was also a breach of privacy, on several levels – one, to do a huge favor for someone he didn't even know, and two, to mess around on a computer that was your own, but not. To go rooting around in your own head, in another dimension? That wasn't just awkward, it was creepy. And then, of course, to have all of this done for a guy who literally just mocked you for the fact that you were having a difficult time killing him. Oh, yeah. As if any of that would ever go down smoothly with Heero. Heero, who already had several issues with the very idea of working as a team, helping others, or giving his loyalty and trust to somebody. Yeah. No. None of this was surprising.

"Look. I know all of the issues you have with this. Really. I get it. And you know what? I will give you free reign to shoot the shit out of me. Okay? One, two good shots. You don't even have to kill me. Just make me suffer. Okay?" Heero was now looking at Duo like he was maybe expecting him to pull a missile launcher from his butt and shoot Heero in the face with it. "But this has to do with Sanc, and Relena, and maybe even whatever it is Sloan's up to. So we might need whatever information Howard's found. And that means going through your – the other you's – safety protocols. And you know damn well no one's doing that but you." He thought about it, then added, "even though that very weird, circuitous you-not you thing is probably making all of this very, very weird." And confusing.

Heero just stared at him. Duo had caught him watching over Relena, who was still speaking with Une in some ridiculously large meeting room down several halls from the hospital. Heero leaned against the wall even now, his dark eyes watching Duo's every move.

Okay. How would he have gone about talking to... but no, that was a mistake, too. Not only could he not afford to think of his Heero for fear of wretched amounts of pain, he couldn't make the mistake of thinking that the two were the same. Well. Clearly, that was what he was doing right now. Maybe he should make it clear that he didn't think they were identical? "I know you aren't him," he tried, and Heero's eyes immediately narrowed. Yeah, okay, that was fair. "I know parts of you are. I mean, the parts before Operation M started – for me. Up until your mid-teens? Or, at least, they weren't dissimilar..." Okay, Duo, seriously, stop digging yourself in deeper. He scratched the back of his head. "Damn, this is hard to explain. Parts of you – the dickish parts, really – are the same. The whole..." He waved his hand vaguely. " _Thing_ you have going on there for you. All that. The brain. That's the same, too, I think. Or at least similar enough that, of anyone, you'll have the best chance of breaking into the laptop."

Heero didn't so much as blink. And yeah, maybe he wasn't being very clear. "Look, can't you stow the attitude for ten seconds? We don't have to like each other. It's not like it's going to matter for long, anyway. Remember? Dying?" He now waved vaguely at himself. Heero's eyes darkened still more, until they looked almost black. "And I gotta admit, seeing you like this bothers me. It makes me miss _my_ Heero. A lot." He cleared his throat at the glare. "I mean the Heero I knew. The one from my dimension." He quickly waved that all away. "I wouldn't be asking if there was a chance in hell I could get the information myself."

Heero scoffed.

"You know what?" Duo bristled. "Fuck you, too. There. We good? Can we move on? I get it. You're not for the whole team thing. Your loss. That's great. I wanted to get all of you together because,r eally, it's just a lot better that way. Teammates. People you can trust. People to watch your back. You can't tell me even you didn't have some hard times during the war, because that's a load of bull and I will throw it into your face faster than you can blink. Got that, pretty boy?"

Oh. Maybe the last part had been taking it a bit too far.

 _Way to ask for a favor._ Well, he'd always been shit at asking for help, anyway.

"I'm only asking because the princess would be in danger if we didn't at least try. You stayed around protecting her all this time, and you couldn't even get to her when it mattered. I'll bet that burns, right? SO, what? Now you just wipe your hands of the situation? After staying in Sanc for how many years? Yeah, you're damn _right_ you're nothing like the Heero I know."

Heero's gun was out so fast Duo literally did not see the change. One second Heero was glaring murder at him with his arms loose by his sides, the next his stupid damn gun was cocked out and aimed perfectly for Duo's face. Duo smiled. "Does that mean you'll do it? Because if you take the shot, that means you're taking me up on my offer."

Heero grimaced. It was almost fun to watch. Duo had nearly forgotten how easy baiting Heero could be. Of course, baiting him usually got him no less than a punch to the gut, but hey. Worth it. Mostly. Unless Heero didn't hold back. Then it just kind of hurt.

Slowly, Heero lowered his weapon. "Show me the laptop."

And it wsa super awkward and terrifying, leading Heero back to Howard's with his back turned to the man. And since he'd actually taken Duo up on the offer, he would have to hold up his end of the bargain, and Heero did not pull his punches. He had no doubt he would end up paying for that 'pretty boy' remark.

Howard seemed genuinely surprised to find Heero with Duo when he returned. Did everyone know about Heero, or did news travel around just that fast? Or did Duo's own reaction to the man tell Howard everything he'd needed to know? Or maybe a person could just take one look at Heero and get that he was just not a happy helper. In any case, Howard at least knew to get the hell out of Heero's way when he sidled up to the three monitors and the laptop hooked to some wires and a modem. He stared at the two photos for a moment, then touched the keyboard. He changed the angles of the photos for a few minutes, erasing certain buildings to get a better view of what sat behind them. Then he sat in the chair and pulled up the remains of the laptop's hard drive. There wasn't much, and Duo winced.

And then there was that familiar clacking sound of Heero's fingers on the keyboard, and despite himself, Duo felt his muscles relaxing. He turned to Howard. "This could take a while. Why don't you grab something to eat? Check up on the other me. He got hit hard."

Howard nodded. "I'll do that." He gave Heero a long look, his gaze hidden behind his sunglasses, but the length of his stare assessing, before he filed on out.

Duo didn't move. Heero, his face awash in the blue-white light of the monitors, looked so similar to the Heero he'd known. Slightly taller, more leveled-out body-wise, his face more angular, less baby fat. But there it was. The Heero he'd known back when they'd roomed together in dormitories. That was, for an instant, who he saw sitting there. That was what he heard when he listened to the steady clack of the keys. It made him ache with a loss so deep he couldn't breathe. He leaned against the wall and hugged his stomach, trying to keep the pain in. He worried constantly at the ring on his finger.

Time passed slowly, and Howard spent it dithering with his computers and something that looked straight out of the Batcave, all bright lights and tiny beeps. Even though Heero didn't so much as twitch whenever Howard moved too close to him, Duo knew he was ready to shoot the man the instant he moved in any way Heero didn't accept. Duo spent the time between trying to get himself under control and wishing the pain he was feeling was from the curse and not from emotional constipation. Of course, most of said time was spent watching Heero.

He didn't know how long it was – he didn't have an internal clock like some people. But he knew a good amount of time had passed when he heard soft, clicking footsteps and realized that Relena had actually come to join them. Une stood just outside the ship, according to the screens Howard immediately pulled up. Duo turned to Relena with a grin. She visibly relaxed when he came into sight. "Hey," he said, speaking softly, even though he knew both that Heero was listening and that his concentration wasn't even remotely hindered by that fact.

"Hello," she returned, giving him a small smile. He didn't miss how she looked him up and down, twice, as if to assure herself he hadn't come to any further harm while she'd been away. He also didn't miss the quick looks she kept sending to Heero's back, as if he were some ticking time bomb that she'd been told she needed to diffuse. Well, he supposed that might make sense, if she'd been told she'd been crushing on this man in another dimension. But when she moved into the room, it was not to go and speak with Heero, or try to see what he was doing. It was to go and lean against the wall beside Duo. And she even hitched her shoulder up slightly, as if to offer to take some of his weight.

His feet did both hurt, and the potential-hair fracture burned. He considered acting strong. He considered not making himself look weak in front of Heero. Then he thought of Relena, of how lonely she must have been to bond so quickly with him. He thought of her silently offering her support, only to be turned down. And he leaned against her. Just a bit.

He closed his eyes. Relena still smelled of flowers, but it no longer smelled wholly like she'd sprayed herself. More like a natural scent, like she'd been born from within some rose and merely carried the scent on her skin. It should have been creepy, or weird, or a little uncomfortably close, or something. But instead it just felt restful. Also, keeping his weight off his worse foot made everything hurt just a little bit less, so that was a bonus.

The sound of Heero's clacking suddenly stopped, and Duo lifted his gaze, amazed that he'd actually been able to find a little bit of rest. He immediately looked to Heero. The man sat silent in his chair, staring at his screens. Something flashed over them, and Heero typed one last thing before sitting back. "Done," he said, and stood. The word alone was over the top for the man, whom Duo doubted had ever before in his life shown the courtesy necessary to announce to the room that he had completed his task.

Duo's eyes narrowed.

"Thanks for the help, kid," Howard said, either ignoring the issuing glare or not seeing it in his haste to get to the screens. Heero backed away, though his hands clenched to do it. Duo just watched the man. There had to be a reason he slipped, right? Most likely, Duo thought grimly, he'd found some sort of evidence on the computer to make it plain there really had been another him. Which meant Duo really had been telling the truth when he'd said that he'd known Heero – which meant it most likely Duo was telling the truth about the two of them being friends. Which, Duo could only suppose, sounded like some sort of medieval torture to him. Or simply dangerous. Friendships were dangerous, weren't they? They could get in the way of the mission, alter his priorities, leave him vulnerable to someone. A Heero who was still largely trapped in the bullshit training J had given him most likely considered Duo an even bigger threat.

But even as he worked himself up into a right tizzy at the prospect, Heero turned to him. And there was no outright censure or hatred. There wasn't even a death glare. He was actually getting some stone-faced version of the 'trying to figure you out' stare. So what the hell did that mean?

Relena sent Heero a small smile, though she ducked slightly into Duo, likely in case the man went postal on her. But all it did was slide that assessing gaze over to her. He stood like some sort of painted statue or wax doll.

Duo turned to Howard. "You got it from here?" he asked, and Howard waved dismissively at him. Yeah, well. Okay, then. Cool. He turned away from the codger and looked down at Relena, carefully pulling his weight off of her as he did. "He'll be stuck playing around with that for... a while. There's no point sitting around here now that the thing is cracked open. He'll bother me again when he's done." He nodded vaguely toward the exit. "Hungry?" He included Heero in the question. The man turned his face away.

Well! Interesting. What in the world had made Heero actually back down?

"Starving," Relena said, nearly sighing in bliss at the very idea of getting something in her stomach. Duo grinned.

"Well, perfect soldier? You willing to join us?"

Heero glared at him, but it lacked its usual heat. Okay, this was just going to bother Duo until he figured it out. But when Duo moved toward the exit, Relena on his heels and his feet reminding him that he was, in fact, injured, Heero actually took his place slightly behind the two of them. Relena actually tensed at the man's position, but she let Duo take the lead, and Duo didn't think Heero would actually go for them. Not then. Not just because he was confused. Hell, that would practically ensure their survival, at least until Heero could figure them out.

And when Duo finally found the cafeteria and grabbed himself and the princess food (Heero wasn't going to be eating anything, even stuff Duo taste-tested like he did for Relena), they actually managed to hold some sort of conversation (in which Heero did not respond to anything, not even with grunts, and Duo filled the silence enough for the both of them). And then Wufei actually came and joined them, grabbing his own plate and helping Duo carry the conversation. And then _Sally_ came, and it felt like friends gathering. It felt like some sort of home.

He bit into his meatball sub and felt something inside his chest twist and tear. It felt like home, but he couldn't afford to have one anymore. Even if he wasn't dying, he had to make sure the other him lived. And he had to make sure there was a place in this group for him. If that meant taking a backseat, then he should do that. He should be able to do that.

But even as he thought it, he let Wufei sit opposite him, beside Heero, let Sally sit beside him and let Relena take his other side. He let them form around him like a shield. He let the conversation spin around the idea of the Preventers as flying monkeys, then as little imps manipulating the world from on high, and helped Sally expand the idea into some sort of office building made up on the clouds the imps confiscated from the cherubs.

By the end, Heero and Relena were looking at the two of them, Duo and Sally were sharing triumphant smirks, and Wufei was sighing gustily. "This meeting between the two of you will come back to haunt me, won't it?" the man asked, but he wasn't even trying to hide his grin.

Duo could have been morbid and cruel. He could have reminded the man about his own limited time span. Instead he flung a pea at the man and said, "it was too late the moment she and I greeted each other. You just didn't know it. We've cleverly bided our time until this moment. From now on, we shall strike with our usual military precision into the heart of your patience, until finally we come out victorious." He and Sally exchanged a high five.

Relena hid her giggle behind a napkin.

Heero just kept watching him, watching them all. Then his eyes shot away from them, behind Duo. He turned, as well. Wufei's gaze shifted, and then both Sally and Relena were turning around in their seats. Une strode toward them, her lips thin. Duo jolted from his chair, ready to hear the worst about his other half, suddenly terrified. He should have known that, more than being healthy or well, being outright _happy_ would tilt the precarious balance fully in his favor–

"We've found unsettling news, Agent Chang," she said as greeting to them all. Heero was on his feet in the next moment, Wufei following shortly behind. Sally finished off her bite of spaghetti before following them. Relena moved to stand, but Duo placed a hand on her shoulder and sent her a small grin. He very carefully maneuvered himself to stand between her and Une. He saw Heero pull out his gun from wherever and do the same on her other side.

"What is it?" Wufei asked. He looked ready to launch over the table, remaining plates of food be damned.

Une shook her head and glared slightly at the lot of them. "Privately," she said, and moved away.

Duo rolled his eyes and turned to Heero. He knew damn well the man had already hacked into Preventers' comms and radios and cameras, and likely also had a way of listening in to whatever conversation she and Wufei were about to have. Of course, he had absolutely no reason to share whatever information he gleaned with the rest of the class, and Duo couldn't expect confusion to be met with anything but paranoia and obstinance from the man.

But he wouldn't be able to get any information on his own. Would it be worth sneaking through the ducts or jacking into the cameras himself? Would he even make it in time?

Relena pulled herself from behind Duo and stood up straight. "Whatever you have to say, you will say it in front of us all." Une lifted a brow at that, and yeah, for once, Duo was actually on the woman's side. Security risk much? But Relena didn't seem cowed at all. "These people could have very easily made a mess of this facility," Relena said. True. "They could have killed me. I do not doubt they have had at least one or two options to kill you. They likely could have coordinated to crash this entire vehicle into the ground." Also true. "You cannot tell me you think them a risk _now_."

Une lifted her nose into the air, just slightly, and Duo was amazed by the sudden urge to slam his face into the woman's face. All he could think was that no one should snub Relena like that.

Which felt weird, since he'd been in the habit of doing just that.

"Sorry, Miss Darlian," Une said, her voice just off from professional and falling slightly into condescending, "but your safety in this matter is not to be disregarded." She glared at Duo, then Heero. Duo stuck his tongue out at her, not giving a single damn if she saw or not. She turned away from them, in any case. After glaring at Heero, Duo was vaguely surprised both of her arms were still attached. "Allow us to protect you at least this much."

The attempt to guilt trip her was obvious, and Duo turned to the little princess, ready to see her bite her lip or look away for an instant. But of course, that was not what this Relena would do. Instead she flipped back her hair, glared heatedly at Une's back, and said, "it is not you whom I trust to protect me."

And the burn was so perfect Duo found himself laughing and clapping the girl on the back without thinking about it. Relena gave him a shy smile from beneath her lashes.

Une's shoulders stiffened, but she didn't turn back to them, and after a moment, she continued leading Wufei away. Sally looked torn between staying with them or going to wait for her hubby. Duo nodded over to them. "He's not going to be happy about choosing duty over loyalty," he said, and the woman sent him a grateful, if slightly surprised, smile.

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to you just _knowing_ us," she said, and slipped away after them.

But he didn't. Not really. Every time he thought he was getting used to the idea of them being different, he fell into old habits, old expectations. And then he found himself surprised all over again when they showed themselves to be different people. Like looking at echoes, or a man and his shadow, or some mirror image in a funhouse. He scrubbed his face and turned to Relena. "Well, shall we finish eating, or go to Howard's and see if we make it in time to find out what they're talking about?"

She sent him a disbelieving look.

"Right. To Howard's, then." He turned to Heero. "Do you want to come with us, or check out what they're saying in Wing?"

Heero glared at him seemingly on instinct, because a short moment later, that carefully-blank look was there again. The man stared at Duo hard, then nodded curtly and moved to leave. He didn't say a word to either of them.

Relena's brows furrowed as she watched him go. Duo would love to be able to march quickly like Heero did, but he had to take his time or else mess up his legs even worse than they already were. It meant they were likely not going to make it in time, but Duo didn't feel quite safe enough to tell Relena to go on ahead of him. Une was a bit more of a hardass than usual; just that tiny bit of change might mean a huge difference in who was allowed to become a Preventer. And that meant there might be those within these very walls who may not have the best intentions for Relena. It wasn't that he doubted Une'd screening to be rigorous to the point of perfection – but things she would never have allowed before might be perfectly acceptable now.

So Duo kept Relena with him, though it meant it took them nearly ten minutes to get to Howard's ship. And by then, Duo had no doubt that whatever pertinent details Une had to give had already been handed out. And it would take him time to hack into Preventers' database, if he managed it at all – because once again, he couldn't be sure about the changes _this_ Une made compared to his – and by _then_ , the entire conversation would be over. He had to hope Howard had some sort of hack already set up. If not, then he wold either have to go begging for scraps from Heero – worse than useless, sine it would show Heero another vulnerability in him – or go without knowing; the very thought of doing so burned.

But when they finally arrived at the ship, Howard was already on his way out. Duo cocked a brow at the sight; the man had obviously intended to hole himself up in his own personal fortress instead of traveling around Preventers flying HQ. "Howard?"

The old man jerked his head in Duo's direction and burst out in a broad grin. "Little Duo! Good. I was just on my way to get you." And Howard strode over, grabbed Duo's arm, and started dragging him forward, mindless of the cast around Duo's ankle. Duo winced.

Relena grabbed Howard's arm and jerked him away from Duo. The force of it was surprising, almost as much so as the suddenly steely gaze she leveled on the man. "Can't you see he's injured?" she asked, her voice snapping, and Howard stared down at her, his mouth slightly agape. Duo was fairly positive whatever look the man was giving her from behind his sunglasses was mirroring his own.

"Ah, right. Of course. Hurry up, though; this is important." And the old man led them straight back to his ship, where he likely had anti-spy equipment to mask any noises or prevent hacking. Or maybe he had some sort of elaborate technological equipment like the Avengers or something. Something that watched over every piece of equipment in his baby and maybe produced malware to any attempting spies.

Oh. That actually sounded kind of cool. Maybe he could make that a thing.

It took Duo far longer than it had Howard, and he ended up leaning on Relena partway through, but he managed to get up into the ship despite the pain of the ramp, and as he collapsed into the chair Heero had vacated merely an hour or so before, Howard turned on the screens in front of him.

Duo leaned forward. Relena pressed against his shoulder, her blond hair falling over his shirt and around his neck. It seemed Howard had been busy looking up information; Duo easily saw specs on Sloan's main colony, the one he still called his own, even though technically it had been given back to the people. Sloan still lived there, and had apparently built a sort of base of operations around his estate, which was largely filled with little more than Sloan and his contemporaries – the man couldn't afford retainers anymore. Or, Duo supposed, the man could certainly afford them, but not with legitimate money, and not without the risk of one of the retainers finding weapons or secret storage facilities for mobile suits. The building was nothing like the open facilities of the Sanc estate, and Duo spent a few short moments going over the enclosed layout of the rooms – easier for assassins, unless they got caught – before turning to the second screen.

He hissed in a short breath, his eyes narrowed, as he gazed upon what had to be hacked information about the runs Sloan's men had made recently. Beside them, another list had been compiled, a list of sightings. Similar times and places were outlined in red, highlighting the similarities.

Duo scrolled up and down that list twice, his eyes widening. And then, below them: one annoyingly blurry photograph, in which even Duo could make out the form beneath the tarp.

"Is this..." He looked it over again, just to be sure. His voice shook. "Is this accurate?"

It couldn't be. But even before Howard made a wordless sound in affirmation, he knew it was. That large body beneath that tarp, its Vulcans peeking out, was Heavyarms. It couldn't be anything else. And those sightings – of a tall, lean man with one eye covered – to were definitely accurate descriptions of Trowa. But why? And how? Duo turned to Howard. "How would anyone know to search for him?"

"It appears," Howard said, his voice carefully neutral, "that Sloan has been searching for you pilots for quite some time." The man hung his head. "I should have known. No one would let you all just fade into obscurity. The Preventers demanded they have at least one of you, as a sign of good faith. Chang Wufei filled that role."

 _What?_ Wufei hadn't joined voluntarily?

Suddenly, viscerally, Duo hated Une. And he very desperately wanted Relena off the ship. Shit. No wonder Une had accepted both Duo and Heero with barely a qualm. Jesus.

But then, why had Sally and Wufei seemed so happy whenever Duo had seen them? They certainly didn't seem like two people who had been forced into a situation – if Wufei could ever be forced into a situation. (But maybe he had here? Maybe Wufei reacted differently to that sort of thing here than he would have in Duo's dimension?)

He had to get the rest of _that_ story. Later. "And now? Have others searched for the other pilots all this time?"

Howard nodded. "Unsuccessfully," he said, and Duo wondered that any of the pilots had accepted his 'I'm from another dimension' bit when he'd hunted them down. Holy smokes. "Until now, it seems. Unless, of course, this adds up to how it appears, and the last pilot has joined forces with Sloan."

He wanted to immediately deny it. Trowa wasn't that kind of guy! But then, what kind of guy was he? Hilde was completely different. Relena was completely different. _Quatre_ , even, someone Duo would have thought as constant as the sun. And those who were similar? They resembled more extreme versions of the people they'd been before the war, or maybe just at the start of it. Duo had only vaguely known Trowa from back then, but from what he remembered, the man was the type to follow orders and live robotically through the rest of his time. Heero, of course, Duo could attest to – the perfect soldier, the numb hater of anything funny, the man who shielded himself from people with bullets and threats of bullets. Trowa, Quatre had told him once, lived day to day. And Trowa had once acknowledged that, before the war, he'd been a mercenary.

Could this Trowa, in this universe, also be a mercenary? Could ha have actually sold his skills to Sloan? Had the Trowa of his dimension only originally joined in Operation M only because it had been a job, or because he'd had no better alternative? Duo had certainly been placed in such a predicament, but he'd gone through with it because he'd wanted to end the war. Hadn't Trowa's aspirations at least been similar? But no, probably not; the Trowa Duo had known was the Trowa already influenced by Quatre. This Trowa was a complete stranger.

But Duo couldn't think of treating Trowa as an enemy. He needed to go and find the man before he entered the battlefield, before things went to far. Before the Preventers...

And then Duo blanched. Because this could only be what Une had called Wufei away for. This was what she'd found out.

He leaned forward. "Where is this?" he asked, pointing to Sloan's estate. And then, without waiting for an answer, he scrolled through the information until he had it himself. "I have to go there. Immediately." He stood up and turned – only to nearly bump straight into Relena. Fuck. That was right. He couldn't possibly bring her with him on this kind of mission. But leaving her behind with a Preventers that may not be nearly as good as he'd assumed – and stupid him, he should have remembered Heero's warning that assumptions led to mistakes – he couldn't do that, either. That might literally be leaving her in the middle of the hornet's nest.

Heero. He had to trust in Heero, at least. That, if nothing else, Heero was still his own man, and that he would never stand for anything other than what he believed in. Even indoctrinated by J, even as bitter and angry and nearly-psychotic as he was at the moment, he could still be trusted with Relena's safety. Why else had the man watched over her all this time?

"I need to get you to Heero." Then he thought it over again, and he turned to Howard. "Actually, may I take over your radio lines? I want to try to get in touch with him from here. Relena." He turned to her and gently grabbed her shoulders, just to make sure she understood that this was important. Unnecessary, of course; she was already looking at him with nearly-blank eyes, as if preparing for some sort of battle. "I don't know what anyone's intentions are. I know it sucks, but I need you to be super paranoid, okay?"

She nodded. "That's fine. I've been like that since my father was murdered right in front of me. But that woman." And she nodded her head toward the exit of the ship. Duo knew exactly who Relena was referencing. Everyone knew Une had assassinated Minister Darlian. What Duo had failed to take into account was the five years. Well, no, he'd thought about how, without Heero to protect her, she'd ended up getting hurt. And he'd thought about how that might have ruined her naïvete just a bit. But he hadn't really _thought_ about it. About what she would have had to do to survive. A girl who saw her father brutally murdered in front of her would have it bad enough, but hadn't she also been targeted by Une back then? If she'd had to go into hiding... well. That would explain everything.

He squeezed her shoulders and let go. "All right, then. Yeah. Good. I'll need you to not trust them, all right? Even Wufei. I mean, he's a great guy, but–"

"No, I understand." She didn't even show concern over the idea of being left alone.

"Stay here with Howard. I'll send Heero to you."

He finally received a reaction at that; her eyebrows both rose. "Of all the people to still trust."

"Heero has no reason to pretend to be anything he isn't," Duo said. "He watched over you all this time, since way before Sloan became the problem he is. He could have killed you at any time. He could have tried getting close to you to manipulate you. He did neither." He looked over to Howard as the man gave him a thumbs up. "If anyone is going to protect you for the right reasons – or at least, will try to just protect you and not do anything to you or demand something from you in the process – it's him."

Relena still didn't seem fully convinced, even though he'd used the same argument with her over and over again and had yet to hear any reasonable refutations. But maybe that was for the best? Better a distrusting princess than a trusting one. Duo let her go and hurried to Howard's side. His twisted ankle complained, but his potentially-fractured one _throbbed_. Maybe he would actually have to bow down to the doctors' expert opinion on this one and agree that there might have maybe, perchance been some sort of tiny, infinitesimal break.

Howard held up an earpiece and pointed toward the Batcave/Star Trek panel, then scooted away. Duo watched long enough to see the old man move to Relena's side and start leading her further into the ship before turning to the myriad of switches and lights. Was he supposed to know how to work this ridiculous thing? Duo couldn't tell if it was some 1960's hunk of trash or some sophisticated piece of machinery that worked ahead of the tech his dimension had known. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was a hunk of trash that Howard had miraculously welded together into some sort of hidden masterpiece.

He snorted. Okay, even Howard couldn't be _that_ good.

He poked at the thing for a few minutes before he started to understand the design. It appeared to be some sort of moderator setup. The bulk of the machine was to watch over itself, to alter its IP, scramble its signatures and outputs, renew passwords to hidden caches and files, store, restore, and delete its auto-encrypted information, and trace any and all nearby hard- and software, all for the basic purposes of camouflaging and spying. The device held what seemed to be the equivalent of a high-speed modem that would put all Heero's personal upgrades on his laptop to shame, two radios and another old-school, almost ham-radio thing, and something Duo finally realized was a back-up cache of launch codes and sequences, along with some sort of override for several types of mobile suits. He spent some time there, trying to see if there was anything on the Gundams, but as far as he could tell – and he would likely need several hours, in not days, to tell for sure – there was nothing on those at all. Duo hoped the old man had deleted all such information, if only to ensure that no one else could ever get their hands on or create such a thing ever again.

Finally he stopped messing with Howard's stuff and tried his old Heero's private line. He already had his fingers over the knobs and buttons to input the Gundams' open comm line when Heero's voice spoke into his ear. "Duo."

He jumped, then relaxed. "Ah, yeah." He chuckled. "Guess no one else here knows this line, huh?" Silence. Well. Heero wouldn't be well pleased with Duo's knowledge, of course. He cleared his throat. "I have to go see to something about Sloan. Relena's gonna need you here. She's with Howard."

Silence. Then, "hn."

Holy fuck. Duo closed his eyes, twin lances of pleasure and pain wracking him. He gave himself a slow breath, then charged forward. "Yeah. I'm sure you know why I'm heading out, but in case you don't, I'm gonna try to get the last of us together. If I succeed, that'll be one more person for you to get annoyed with. Or ignore. Either way. I'm just telling you to prepare you. Just in case." He'd already said that. "Right." He held his finger up to his lips and rubbed the ring against them. He wasn't kissing the ring. That would be ridiculous. "I just need you to guard Relena for me? If you could? Well, I know you could." Shinigami's breath, he was actually babbling. "Right." _He'd already said that!_ "I'm just gonna get off the line now before you decide to strangle me with your bare hands."

Another indefinable grunt, and Duo hesitated, hand hovering over the disconnect button. "Heero? You okay?"

He didn't know what he expected. Another grunt? Silence? A warning to get the hell off the comms before he killed him? (Well, yeah, any of those three would have been about what he'd been expecting.) He certainly hadn't, however, expected Heero to say, "Une has already ordered Chang Wufei to the scene with a contingent of men. The pilot who had defended the council has already headed into space."

Duo's head spun. Not only was Une already working on, what? Killing Trowa? (Good luck there.) Not only was Quatre, _Quatre_ , of all people, heading out to meet with Trowa, as well (to what? Assassinate him? This Quatre might actually do that, mightn't he?) – Heero – _Heero_ – had been the one to tell him. Heero, who didn't seem to like Duo any more than the other him had at first in Duo's dimension. The Heero who had left him to rot at the start of the battle in Sanc. The other Heero who had been glaring murder at him since he'd so much as seen Duo's jaunty little braid.

And, well, was it fair to take a short, short moment to reel, and to blink, and maybe to smile a tiny bit? And was it okay to, at the very same time, hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt over that very same fact, because Heero was actually giving him useful intel without it having to do with a mission they both operated on or something they might both need to know in order to protect Relena or anything, but just to give Duo intel because it was useful and he might need it, even though Heero himself gained absolutely nothing from it? A break from the perfect soldier, a shy movement from the angry loner, a crack in the defensive walls J had built around Heero's heart? Was it okay to hurt because he was seeing it here, all over again, and it reminded him of what he'd lost – _who_ he'd lost? Was it okay to hurt because he was seeing it and he knew he couldn't stick around for the end? Because he would die soon, one way or the other?

And then he realized Heero might just be giving him this intel to ensure he _didn't_ die, that he came back, and well, whether it was okay or not, it seemed it was going to happen, anyway.

At least, he thought to himself, if he was going to split apart like this, he still wouldn't cry. It just wasn't something men did, after all.


	9. Broken Hinges

It actually took forever for Duo to charter a flight, which did nothing but make him frantic and irritable and made paranoia spike horribly in his chest. By now, Wufei would have already made it out to space. By now, Quatre could very easily have found Sloan's home and chosen to infiltrate on his own. By now, Sloan could have begun to recover from his defeat at Sanc and started incorporating Trowa into his next strategy. And if he did get Trowa, things would go to hell in an instant. Trowa could distract Wufei and the Preventers, and Sloan likely had enough left to keep Quatre and the Maguanacs busy. If Sloan had anyone left on Earth, he could mount a second offense. And while Heero was bad-ass as all hell, he might not be able to stop it all.

The other him was out for the count. He himself was on a useless mission to the middle of nowhere on the vague hope that he could save this dimension's Trowa. Even if he was back there, his ankles were in just enough pain to make him more a liability than a help (again).

Of course, Heero was the one most likely to hold off a horde of assassins and soldiers. If anyone could keep Relena safe, it was him. And they were with Howard, on his ship. Heero would never leave his Gundam vulnerable, so he likely had Howard go pick it up. Duo would be surprised if they were even still with the Preventers; Heero could easily have used the excuse to get away from them. Duo wondered how Relena was taking that.

Probably not well. He was going to have to calm a few fires when he got back.

He sighed. If he got back. If everything was well when he returned. If the other him wasn't in such dire straits that continuing to live was putting him in danger. If Trowa wasn't an enemy and everything went well, or if he was an enemy and Duo could find it in himself to kill him, or to at least let one of the others do it. If. If. If.

He sighed. He wished he had his music.

He wasn't quite on a civilian craft, but there were a few others onboard. Apparently it was some technician job for the colony beside Sloan's station, scheduled to specifically _not_ interact with any of the ships coming or going from that man's home. It meant getting over would be difficult, but not impossible. Only a few hundred miles separated them. Apparently you could watch the nearby station float right next to you from almost any window in either station. The men were busy talking about the sight when Duo decided to get some shut-eye.

When they finally landed, Duo quickly slunk away from the crew and made his way to the repair suits. They were short and squat and orange, horribly, horribly orange, and like crabs, but with only one hook and a tractor beam that looked like a tadpole's tail on its back. Stealing one was a million times easier than not getting caught afterward; he managed to cut off the alarms beforehand, but he couldn't stop the shouting or the people running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to stop him from escaping out the hatch. A beam rifle would have been nice by then, but he made do with the unwieldy hook.

He expected some sort of greeting when he got near to Sloan's station, but he tried to keep beneath the radar, anyway. He was surprised when no one came to meet with him – until he realized that any proximity alarms would go off twenty-four seven due to the closeness of the two stations to the other. Wow. Talk about a weakness in the ranks.

And then, as he made to land out the outer walls of the station, he found out why it could still work. There were robotic sentries all over the outer walls with turrets stationed along the borders. The things whirred to life, and Duo lost the hook in his escape. His main concern was the other station, but a quick dance with the beams showed them locking and shutting down if their shots could come in range of the civilian station. Well, that made sense, at least; nothing like shooting a hole in a nearby station to get Preventers and regular police on your tail. Which wouldn't be too good if he was making weapons and smuggling in Gundams.

Duo kept his suit close to the civilian colony after that, until he found an airlock unfortunately a good few miles out of range of the colony. But as he got close, he found all the turrets had already been taken down.

His heart hammered. Well. Maybe that was also a reason as to why he wasn't being attacked. But if that was the case, then he had to assume the worst-case scenario. Quatre, almost certainly, and likely the Preventers. And every last one of them might very well be after Trowa.

Duo didn't know if he should try to stop them or help them. Should he assume the worst about Trowa, as well? Should he admit he had no idea who this particular man might be?

He reached up and clutched his necklace. The rings, the cross, all dug into his fingers. He took a deep breath. No. No, not yet. He couldn't just give up on the man simply because things looked bad. How many times had Trowa infiltrated an organization? How many times had he seemed like the enemy, to the point where even Wufei gave up on him, even though he was an ally to the very end? Even when he'd lost his memory, he'd chosen to do the right thing. Trowa might have been a mercenary, and he might have lived a different life in this universe. But that didn't automatically make him a complete stranger. And it certainly didn't make him Duo's enemy.

For the next fifteen minutes, Duo maneuvered his sad little vehicle over to an already-broken into hatch and headed into Sloan's home base.

It wasn't a colony. It was hardly a station. Like a floating mansion, it was little more than an ostentatious show of Sloan's previous power. The tiny thing orbited one of the larger colonies just to keep its orbit from decaying. The halls were small, thinner than larger colonies'. And though Duo did his best to keep cover, he knew the only reason he wasn't caught as soon as he landed his repair vehicle was because the place was already under attack. Duo saw Quatre's hand in the cleanliness of it all; the exits had been swept clean of both enemies and weapons. He managed only two halls before a handful of Maguanacs grabbed him up. Duo threw his hands into the air. "I'm a friend of Quatre's!" he said. Then, a mere second after that, "well, I say friend, but we only met maybe a day or so ago. Including my trip here." He held up a finger. "Actually, how long has it been?"

The Maguanacs at least were mature enough to keep their weapons up, even as one of them said, "give us your name."

"Duo Maxwell," he said. And as if it was some sort of magic password, they slowly lowered their weapons. He put his hands down. He was certain it had been over a day. If it hadn't been over a day, something was horribly wrong with his luck. Well. He'd already known that.

It was more like two days. Or three? It was so hard to keep track of those things when you were traveling all over the world and system besides. He started counting again.

"Why are you here?" one of the Maguanacs asked, and Duo sighed and gave up for the moment.

"For Quatre, obviously," he said, being deliberately vague. It was _vaguely_ true that part of the reason Duo wanted to find Trowa was for Quatre's _sake_. And that was close enough, wasn't it? Sure it was. It counted. Definitely. "So if you're not going to shoot me, I'm gonna head out." He made it about two more steps before one of the men held up a hand.

"We're in the middle of an operation," the man said. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, and Duo wondered if it was Harim or not. He couldn't be sure. Maybe that was for the best? He could treat the man as the stranger he was. "Lord Quatre is out there taking care of the newest threat. The last thing we need is a wild card on the field."

"Bullshit," Duo said. He gave the guy his biggest shit-eating grin. "That's the best card in the damn deck."

And he brushed past the men, ducking away as soon as he rounded the next corner, just in case they realized they probably should have stopped him.

If Quatre was out there, at that moment, hunting down Trowa, things could be even worse than he feared. The old Quatre had fought Trowa, as well. But the _old_ Quatre wasn't as bitter and jaded. No. He'd been so ridiculously hopeful and naïve Duo had felt like some sleazy old man next to him. This Quatre was completely different. This Quatre would never surrender to an enemy, no matter that he was a Gundam pilot or not. And _this_ Quatre perceived threats quickly – perhaps even threats that weren't there. If Quatre thought Trowa was an enemy – well. There was no 'if' about it. He definitely thought of Trowa as an enemy. He was, after all – presumably – with Sloan. And this Quatre likely wouldn't give Trowa the chance to explain himself.

The corridors followed a painfully linear pattern. Duo could have followed it even without the stark emptiness of them – the dark, blood-stained walls, the faux marble flooring that looked nothing less than tacky. None of it hid the military precision with which this place had been built. Likely Romefeller, or Oz, or whomever had been in charge all that time in this dimension, had had a direct hand in creating the blueprints for the place. Heating and coolant rooms sat in the exact same places they had in Romefeller bases on Earth, as did waste disposal. Only instead of a incinerator, there was both an incinerator and a chute. Duo ducked into the waste room when he heard footsteps behind him. He hid against the wall beside the door. The doors were thick, thicker than he thought; they were heavy metal disguised to look hollow. No window in the door sat for him to peek through, and he was forced to merely wait for the sound of footsteps to retreat on down the hall.

He looked around the room, more from habit than from the hope of finding anything, and stopped. The room was a disaster area, with scraps and trash everywhere. It looked like someone came in here and searched the place already. But then something stood out, something that didn't fit. By the chute, sitting slightly apart from the wreckage and gently along the floor, was a space suit. He blinked at it. A space suit beside that which would provide an escape – one that included dealing with explosive decompression. The force alone would be dangerous, even if the other colony wasn't so close that anyone trying to alter their flight risked a quick slam into its walls. Even if moving too far _away_ from the colony meant getting shot by this station's own outer defenses. Only one person, of course, would have ever tried for such a thing on this station. Only one psycho, with the crazy acrobatics necessary to keep himself alive...

He barely turned back to the door in time for it to slide soundlessly open. Duo just stared at Trowa as he entered. An annoying, buzzing thought sounded in the back of his head: _he didn't make any sound_. But Trowa never made a sound. And then, right after that: _he looks like hell_. And that one actually had merit. Gaunt cheeks. Sallow skin. Pale. Eyes made large by loss of weight. Hair nearly oily.

Alone. Broken. Tired. _Nearly dead_. This was not how Duo pictured finding Trowa.

The man saw him at the same instant Duo did. But while Duo just stared, Trowa leaped into the room and pulled his gun from the holster he likely kept hidden in the same place, at the small of his back. Duo didn't even bother reaching for his. Trowa would shoot him far faster than he would be able to so much as aim, and he didn't want to fight, anyway. He raised his hands. "I'm already dying; there's no point in shooting me."

The old Trowa might have hesitated, if only because Duo did something outside of the usual rulebook. For all that Trowa could adjust on the fly arguably faster than Duo or even Quatre, the man had expectations. He also had a curiosity that usually meant he was willing to listen to people. To gain information. To learn. But this Trowa just looked feral. Tired and angry and – oh. The man's hands were trembling slightly. Trowa _never_ trembled. He'd been on his last leg, hadn't he? And for quite a while.

"I'm not your enemy, I swear it," Duo said. "I'm not with Sloan. I don't know what you're doing here with him, but I'm not against _you_. Sloan, yeah, any day of the week. But not you. Because you're not really his ally, are you? He bought you, or you decided to use him, or to pretend. Right?"

Trowa hand wavered a bit more noticeably. "Who are you?" he growled. _Growled_. Duo's breath hitched. Oh, _Trowa._ The man was _scared_.

"My name is Duo. Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie. And I'm telling you, Trowa – I'm not your enemy. I – It's not even that I don't want to fight you. It's that I _won't_." Because there was no way, _no way_ , Trowa would have come to Sloan willingly and ended up looking like this. He almost looked _shorter_ somehow than the Trowa Duo had known. It took Duo several seconds to realize that the change was due to Trowa slouching. For the first time in the entirety of the time Duo had known the man, he was actually, for once, seeing Trowa slouch. "Shoot me if you want, just to be sure. I won't even move."

Trowa glared at him. Shook. More people ran by outside, and both Trowa and Duo tensed. Someone banged against the door, and Duo, on instinct, shouted out, "I'm busy farting around in here! Don't piss off the wild card!" And after a second, footsteps retreated once more down the hall.

Trowa lowered his weapon, his gaze still wary but the rest of his body beginning to slump in something that looked an awful lot like relief. Or maybe just resignation. "What do you want?"

"I'm not some sort of evil dictator," Duo said, and then realized he was saying so in an evil dictator's home. He grinned at the thought. "I don't want anything big from you. I want to get you looked at. I want to ask you what the hell happened to you these past five years. I want to ask if you'll help me babysit these four idiots I know. They pilot Gundams, too, you know."

Trowa tensed and raised his gun again at that.

"Oh. Right." Because Quatre had come here, and what were the chances the man hadn't used his Gundam in preparation for Trowa doing the same? But Trowa was a tactician and a merc and even a thief, and he knew, like Duo did, that stealth and the right opportunity were far more important. And apparently the Gundams can't be piloted by anyone but the pilots. There was absolutely no reason for the man to go to Heavyarms and every reason for him to escape and regroup. "Quatre's jumping without thinking. He usually doesn't do that, I swear. This is why they need babysitters." Trowa did not look impressed. And the 'wild' part of that wild card looked like it suited him more at the moment than it did Duo. "As I said. You can shoot me if you want. I won't move. You can even kill me. But that would literally just be a waste of time – in a few days, I'll be dead, anyway." He waved slightly. "Dying man, remember?"

And if he wasn't dying anymore, he would fix the problem himself.

Trowa's grip on the gun didn't loosen, but he didn't move to shoot, either. "You asked what happened in the past five years, but I don't know you."

"No. You don't. And it's going to sound insane, but I'm not from this dimension." He sighed. Maybe he should just make a card, or record this explanation. Just to make sure he never had to say it again. "I'm from a different one, where Operation M started five years before it did here. I know you from there. Which means, obviously, that I don't really know the _you_ that you are at all anymore."

Trowa's hands were really shaking now. "Run off if you need to," Duo said, nodding toward the chute. "Head out. Regroup. But come see me? When you feel like you're on a more even keel, or whatever it's called. And look me up. Check out who's been in the hospital in the Preventers' flying HQ. It's the other me, by the way. Spoilers. And then you can come talk to me again. If you want. You look like you could use a friend. And a few good meals." He smiled. "If you don't want me talking to the others about you, I won't. Even though I think it might do you and them some good. Okay?"

Trowa's gaze finally emptied. Duo was actually happy to see it; it reminded him of the Trowa he'd known at the start of the war. And that Trowa, as different and unapproachable as he'd been, was infinitely better than this half-crazed, desperate animal before him.

Duo took a deep breath. For all his talk, he was not suicidal. He was banking on the parts of Trowa he thought probably couldn't change, the parts born of their shitty pasts and yet desire to pilot a damn Gundam. The desire to give when they'd never gotten. It was something that made them strong, stronger than most. People who had no one, nothing, who were hunted and attacked and vilified, but yet who gave of themselves, anyway. (Not to say he was a hero; he would be forced to laugh himself comatose if he ever heard that. Maybe just stupid.)

He closed his eyes.

Everything went dark, even as he continued standing there, hands open and out down at his sides, almost as if asking to be shot. (He was not actually asking to be shot.) The moment stretched interminably, a dark silence that pulled itself long, out, until the tension curled around him and started suffocating him. His chest seized. For a moment, he thought he'd been shot. For a second, he wondered if Death's Hand had finally returned to crush him to death. But it passed. It was nothing. And still Trowa did not tell him he could open his eyes. Still he did not hear the long double-click of the safety being put on a gun.

But then he _did_ hear something – the sound of clothing, cloth rustling. Over to his side. Toward the chute.

Toward the space suit.

And as he listened, he heard Trowa seal himself safely inside, then heard the tiniest of scuffling sounds as he entered the chute. Duo wondered what kind of override was necessary to get the chute to work from inside. Short-circuited wires, assuredly. But the pressure of the decompression would inevitably cause more harm to those wires. There had to be some sort of emergency override beyond just messing with the damn wires. This soon, however, after Trowa likely joined (or pretend-joined) Sloan – well, there was no guarantee that it would work.

And if that was the case, then there was the oh-so-fun chance that Duo either dealt with horrible pain or a much worse death than being shot for hoping a part of his old friend remained in someone completely different.

But the alarm blared, the loud shuff of air shooting from the chute could be heard, and then the alarm changed and the decompressed air suddenly got shut off from space. The sound of the chute was replaced by the hiss of equilization.

Someone banged on the door. "Stop 'farting around,' wild card!" a man shouted, and Duo could almost swear it was definitely Harim this time. The man opened the door. His glasses glinted sharply off the reflections of the scrap metal strewn all over the room. The man glared at him. "I would ask if you suddenly took an interest in cleaning messes, Mr. Maxwell, but since the only thing missing is the suit we found earlier, I can only assume you let the pilot go instead of beating him to the ground like you were supposed to."

Duo grinned. "I guess that's why I'm the wild card."

* * *

"It was completely irresponsible of you! Let alone the reckless behavior of someone in your condition doing anything like what you've done even by coming up here, but to _let him go!"_ The sudden mother-henning distracted Duo from counting the number of turns Quatre made as he paced in front of him. The blond had shoved him into a chair the instant potentially-Harim and three other Maguanacs escorted him – more like a recalcitrant child than a prisoner – onto the bridge. The men now stood off toward the entrance while Quatre skulked and glowered.

"Wow, Qat. Didn't know you cared." He gave the man a giant grin when Quatre shot a soul-searing glare his way. "That look doesn't suit you."

" _Then you shouldn't have angered me to the point that I'm using it!"_ Which was a hilarious statement, because if Quatre was truly that _angered_ , he would have cursed.

But then again, that would have been _his_ Quatre, and Duo really needed to learn how to differentiate.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have barged in here on a mission to kill?" Duo said, lilting the sentence at the end like it was a question, even though it clearly wasn't. He'd meant to do it to lower the sting of his words, but it didn't seem to work. Quatre looked vaguely affronted as Duo spoke, as if it was an insult to try to involve Quatre in it. But by the time the sentence was over, the blond's face was pulled back in a horrible shape, lips and skin pale, mouth hanging slightly open. As if he'd only just then realized his first reaction had been violence.

"I told you before, right?" Duo said, deliberately gentling his voice. The Maguanacs scattered around the edges of the room, who had been watching Quatre's verbal flaying with gusto, now looked away, trying to at least give Quatre a vague feeling of privacy. The blond grabbed his head. "I want to try to get all of you together. Because even if you're different people now – here – something's still wrong. You're a good man, Quatre. You're able to see the goodness in others better than anyone I've ever seen. But now it's like you think only the darkest of them."

Quatre almost flinched, but he raised his head. "My father was murdered for the colonies I'd chosen to protect. Before I'd even had the chance to _try_ , they turned on themselves. There is darkness in every heart."

"Of course there is," Duo said, his mouth moving on autopilot while his brain tried to keep up with what Quatre had just told him. The man's father – Duo well remembered the grief that had pulled Quatre away from them. The grief Quatre had, to his dying day, refused to speak of, merely calling what he did afterward 'an unpardonable sin.' And this had happened before he'd even sat in Sandrock? Why had he even gone through with Operation Meteor? After the civilians had turned on them, Duo had given up on them. His fight had turned to doing what would help them, irregardless of what they wanted, or thought they wanted.

"I knew what was right," Quatre said, and Duo jumped as he realized he'd actually asked the question in his mind out loud. He grimaced. Stupid autopilot mouth. "Even if others acted out of the darkness in their hearts... if I did nothing – if I let the colonies continue on their path of self-destruction – things would never change. The slaughter of my family would become normal. Accepted."

Duo sucked in a breath. He was afraid to ask how many of Quatre's sisters yet survived. "Well," he said. But he had no idea where to go from there. Quatre gave him a grim smile. It did not suit that face _at all_. "I guess that's an even bigger reason why I have to get you all together. That – this world may hopefully have a more lasting peace than mine did, but it seems to have left even bigger scars." And not just the physical ones on the other him. That blank hatred in Heero, the willingness of Wufei to be led by untrustworthy people, the darkness in Quatre, the desperation in Trowa. Every last one of them was struggling. "Look. Even though the five of you never met, you were all instrumental in ending the war, right? You can't do this alone. Fighting. Living in peace. You need each other. You'll drive each other crazy, don't get me wrong. But even though you're all very, very different, having companions makes everything a bit easier to go through."

Quatre's gaze flickered to the Maguanacs. Surely the man had to know Duo was speaking the truth. Without the Maguanacs, things would have been even tougher for him. They would have held him up, supported him – kept him from doing anything crazy. So what if there were those who had sacrificed the same as him? Those who had seen the worst of the people they were trying to protect and had still chosen to give their lives for them?

"It will help," he said, his voice lowering to little more than a murmur without conscious thought. "Do you really think we didn't feel that darkness within ourselves, too?"

Quatre leaned down, taking his weight on the balls of his feet and crouching until he was at eye level with Duo. His gaze wavered for a moment before steadying. "And this last one? He was working with Sloan, Junior."

The damn name slipped out like it was normal! He was going to punch the other him when he got better. "Not willingly, if he ever was at all. Trowa's specialty is infiltration. He can fit in anywhere, like a shadow."

Now Quatre looked nearly stricken. "You mean... he may have..."

"Been on our side from the start, yes." Duo couldn't do anything for the look of horror that washed over Quatre's face. There was no way to gentle that blow. Because whether or not Duo was right, whether or not Trowa had been an ally, all that would have been needed to find out was an attempt at conversation.

Quatre stood abruptly and turned away. "Do you have any idea..." the blond choked out, then cleared his throat and tried again. "Where he might have gone?"

"No clue," Duo said. And he'd promised Trowa that he wouldn't tell the others about him, so he couldn't even give Quatre that chance. "But at least we know where he's not." He looked over the room in Sloan's station. It was tiny, likely once used for storage. It had been cleared out some time ago. Duo had thought the mess in the waste disposal room had been to hide the space suit, but now he wondered if maybe it had been left by Sloan and his men when they'd packed up and left. Oh, there had been men left on the base, but it had been, according to Quatre, a skeleton crew, centered around Trowa, apparently. With him gone, whatever pithy resistance had remained had dropped like flies.

"We also have his Gundam," Quatre said, with that soft, faraway voice that said he was planning something. He drifted away from Duo.

Sweet. He'd gotten out from the rest of the lecture.

He waited until Quatre and a couple of the Maguanacs left the room before he stood and stretched. The man with the glasses, whose name Duo still had not gotten, cocked a brow as he moved. It could be for a million things without the man's lips moving and his eyes covered, so Duo just ignored him and left the room, as well. Harim Wannabe hurried after him. Not that Duo cared. He had to get away from the Maguanacs, from Quatre, to be able to await Trowa, who would never come near them willingly now.

The best place to wait would be at Preventers HQ, where he'd told Trowa to go check out the other him. The man could attack and kill him, if he had the desire, and Duo felt slightly uneasy about that fact. But why go out there for anything, if not to check, as Duo insisted? Why go to HQ at all otherwise, unless he was being blackmailed or manipulated by Sloan to attack them? (But Duo dismissed that thought, because he couldn't imagine Trowa being okay with being manipulated, and what the hell would Trowa care enough about to get blackmailed for?)

He'd put a lot of faith, once again, in who a person _had_ been, instead of who they were. But seeing Trowa like that had made his damn mind go blank. The man had been practically scrawny. Under the shirt Trowa had worn, Duo could bet the edges of his ribs were showing. What the hell had happened to him?

And Duo couldn't wait around to find out. While he could go back to HQ and watch over the other him and wait for Trowa and try to help Heero watch over Relena and ask Wufei just what the hell was going on (and why wasn't Wufei at the base yet? He should have beaten Duo there; that was another question to ask him), none of it mattered if he was draining the life from the other him. He covered his mouth with his hand, feeling suddenly nauseous. There was so much to do here, and he had no time for any of it at all. Really, he might be making matters worse. Giving too much trust to a veritable stranger. Forcing the world to alter around his wants when he would just disappear soon. Continuing to live when it was clear the other him was in trouble.

But if he left? The other him might recover immediately, or he might still need time to recuperate. They would be one fighter down. Heck, even with his potentially-almost-definitely-fractured ankle, he could still move around with little issue, so long as he popped in a few painkillers. His leg was in far better shape than his counterpart's. And Sloan had picked up and moved out while they'd been recovering, likely as soon as he heard the mission had failed.

Excuses. He was making excuses for himself. Because he didn't want to die. And he sure as hell didn't want to kill himself.

He'd learned long ago that he was selfish. He'd needed to be simply to stay alive. Charitable street rats couldn't exist. Neither could charitable soldiers. But while he'd known he would always be willing to take another's life to sustain his own, he hadn't thought he'd be so cruel as to have that other be a friend. And not just any friend, but _another him_. As awkward and weird and slightly creepy as it was, Duo Senior was someone he cared about. How could he be willing to let the man suffer simply because Duo wanted to hold on a little longer?

He took a deep breath. This whole thing was pointless. Berating himself for living, continuing on, anyway, this ridiculous back and forth between should and would. He should just _act_.

He reached for a gun, even though he didn't have one; the one he'd brought to the fight had been confiscated by Quatre in an act of what Duo could only describe as indignant petulance. Like if he didn't feel like using one, then he shouldn't have one, at all.

The glint of dark shine made him pause. His gaze was drawn to it, even though he already knew what it was. The stupid ring on his finger. He touched it with his thumb, then covered it with his other hand. He mentally apologized for calling it stupid, even though he knew it had only been in his head, and it wasn't like the ring could hear or anything. The cool hardness somehow comforted him, even as he felt like he was splitting into pieces. And yet it was worse, because the calm was heavy, gray, broken. There was nothing to actually speak to. No one to go to and listen as he gave sound advice like Duo should damn well have been capable of figuring it out for himself. There would be no strong back, no steady clacking of keys, no small huff of exasperation when Duo leaned on those shoulders. There would be no feel of muscles rippling as someone leaned back in their chair and tilted their head up until their lips nearly touched. There would be no smirk as that person showed they knew exactly what they were doing to him. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Duo clenched his eyes shut. When he'd been dying, obviously dying, in a way he couldn't stop and couldn't fight, he'd been able to fight through this feeling. He'd thought he was being strong, or just numbing himself to it. He'd thought, 'oh, well,' and moved on, taking comfort in the memories.

Because he was strong? Ha. Because he was _weak_. And he'd thought he wouldn't have to bear it for much longer.

The thought of going on, an endless stretch of nothing, of trying to fix up a world he didn't even belong in while his own world fell apart and no one survived and nothing remained and everyone he cared about was gone, gone, gone, never coming back, and even if he went back, there would be nothing for him to salvage. Just this endless stretch of time. He'd always thought those who thought like this were ridiculous, or melodramatic. And maybe he was being both of those things. He'd certainly never thought he would ever be one of those who considered death a good alternative to living without a loved one, but here he was. Actually considering it.

He rebelled against it immediately, instinctively. He wasn't the type to give up. How many times had his Wufei mocked him for his inability to stay down? How many times had the man likened him to a bull or a mule? And if _Wufei_ , of all people, actually thought of him like that, then it _had_ to be true, right? He didn't lie down and wait for death to take him. If he had, he would be dead a million times over. No. Every single time, every single day, he'd fought and shoved and clawed his way forward. He wouldn't stop now simply because everything was falling apart around him.

But maybe he needed to. To save the life of someone who never should have been in danger to begin with.

He clenched his fingers around his hand, hiding the ring from view. Hadn't there been a time, one single solitary time, when he'd stared death in the face and, instead of mocking it, he'd _dared_ it? Hadn't there been a time when he'd taken his life and placed it wholly in another person's hands?

This wasn't the same person. Of course he wasn't. This one didn't have any memories of coming to kill Duo and instead making an impromptu getaway plan for the two of them. This wasn't... this wasn't the one who had met Duo on a dock. Duo had never shot at this man. Had never rescued him. Had never bantered with him over repairs. Had never watched him explode from a cockpit and land in a puddle of his own blood. He did not know this man.

But he was as close as Duo was going to get.

Duo raised his gaze from the shitty faux marble flooring and stared down the empty hall. While he was safe, alone, he raised his hand to his lips and kissed the ring. _Don't be mad at me for this, okay, Heero? I can only do what I think is best._

He hurried down the hall.


	10. The Scientist

Duo didn't even get to the landing pad at HQ before his resolve was tested. Not by Sloan – that little deep crawler wouldn't slither out until he found a new line of attack – but by Wufei. Wufei! But at least in pure old Wufei fashion, the man caught him getting off the bus into Sanc and stood before him like some sort of battle god.

The day was dusty and dank and wet and nasty enough without having to deal with Wufei on an angry tirade over leaving (or going after Trowa or letting him get away or maybe just keeping Relena away from Une, who knew, really). The bus rolled off from behind him, kicking up water in a light splash that caught the bottom of his ankle. Wufei just looked at him with beady black eyes and crossed arms. Duo looked over the man's shoulder and caught Sally sitting pretty as you please under the bus stop's protective glass. She was reading a book.

"Tell me what happened," Wufei said, before Duo could so much as breathe deeply without exhaust fumes clogging his nose.

"You first," he said. "I know damn well Une told you to take care of Trowa."

Wufei tapped his first finger against his arm. "And you told me very well that these men are ones I could trust." Duo just stared at the man and wondered if he was actually some sort of doppelganger. Wufei cleared his throat and lowered his arms. "Besides, I joined the Preventers under the understanding that I would be the one keeping Une in line, not the other way around."

This world. It made no sense! "Are you serious?" Duo realized he sounded like he was squawking. He also realized that flapping his hands exacerbated the image of an unruly parakeet. He couldn't help it. "You actually joined Preventers knowing the woman was a piece of shit?"

Wufei raised a brow. "You sing a different tune now," he said, and Duo had to admit that yeah, he was definitely acting differently than he had when he'd first come across Une. "But yes. Her motivation is unknown, so I chose to watch over her actions. She is oftentimes the sort to strike down someone, and only afterward to consider if they were an enemy or not." Wufei shrugged. Sally didn't even bother looking up from her reading. Duo wondered if the book was even interesting. She had yet to turn a page. "So? I know very well you would have made it your business to interfere."

How in the world could Wufei be the one to understand him in so little an amount of time? It was surreal. "Yeah, I went to see him. He's in a bad way. Whatever you guys had to pull you through after the war, I don't think he's had it."

"So he's an enemy?" Wufei asked, the prompting actually sounding like he didn't believe his own words.

"No." Well, he'd certainly been right – Wufei didn't look even remotely surprised. "I don't think so, anyway. I didn't pull my gun on him, and even while he was running from Quatre, he didn't fire on me." Wufei's brow rose at that. Duo thought it was more for his reckless behavior than for any oddity in Trowa's. "I don't think he wants to help Sloan. I don't know if that means he was working against him from the start or not, but..." Duo scrunched his face. "I know that I shouldn't judge you guys on the ones I knew. I know you aren't the same. But I still..." He shrugged again, a bit helplessly this time.

Wufei sighed. "We are the same, yet we are different. It's a mistake to choose either extreme. Don't give me that look. It's clear you're trying to pretend we're wholly separate beings, but you're struggling with it, right?" Duo nodded. "You should." Duo jumped at that. "We may not be the same people we were five years ago, but we aren't someone new altogether. Five years ago, ten years ago, I still believed in justice. I was more intolerant then. Strict. Intractable. But that part of me, the part trying to live honorably, and demanding the same of others, is the same." A soft snort came from the bus stop. "Yes, thank you, Po."

Duo grinned.

And even better than the banter, Duo thought Wufei might have been trying to cheer him up. He had no idea what had made Wufei suddenly trusting enough to not only believe Duo's word but also give him support (okay, yes, he did, and it was busy smirking and chuckling behind some uninteresting book), but he was grateful. And Wufei was right, of course. It was like meeting people he'd hadn't seen in several years, not like meeting brand new faces. The people he'd once known, they were still in there somewhere. Life had thrown them different curve balls, but that just meant he had to get to know who they'd chosen to become.

This wasn't him having to start from scratch. He still had the main structure of the building. He just needed to get to know the new materials and rooms and layout.

Thank goodness. That was one perpetual headache over and done with. Hopefully.

Of course, the reminder of headaches, and things being done and over with, only brought Duo back to his earlier decision, and Wufei's words didn't matter so much as his quick bond with him did. That bond was supposed to be for the other him. Duo couldn't take it for himself. He wouldn't be around much longer to appreciate it, and nurturing it would only hurt Wufei more. "I need to get to HQ," he said, pointing up.

Of course, Wufei merely crossed his arms again. "Tell me what happened."

Duo sighed. "Can't we compromise, and I tell you what happened on the way up?"

Wufei looked like he wanted to argue, but he jerked his head up, as well, his gaze following the skyline until it caught on the black dot just below the clouds. He nodded, lips thin, and turned away, finally letting Duo move away from the edge of the curb. Duo gut clenched as he followed. Sally closed the book – she didn't even bookmark the page; she couldn't have actually been reading it, could she have? – and trailed along behind them, as well.

Why was Wufei so accommodating of his demand to go back to Preventers? Was the other him all right? Had Duo waited too long? He thought he might actually be sick. Was there a word for killing yourself in order to sustain your own life?

Wufei took them down several blocks to a helipad. Duo shimmied behind Sally and Wufei in the micro shuttle and pressed his head back against the seat. The steady rumble of the plane was familiar, especially after the trip back to Earth. He let himself be soothed by it like one might a massage chair.

Sally, of course, leaned back while Wufei piloted the thing and looked him up and down. Duo snarked her a tiny smile. "So I take it you, what? Left the helicarrier and twiddled your thumbs until I returned?"

"Oh, trust me, Duo," she drawled, "we had much better ways of passing the time than twiddling our thumbs."

Duo actually flushed and looked away. Whoa, now. Mental imagery of Wufei and Sally together. Was it hot, heartwarming, or freaky? He couldn't tell.

All of the above? Yeah. All of the above.

Of course, Duo's reaction got Sally into a full-throated laugh, one she ended up having to turn back around to the front for or else risk a neck cramp. Duo flipped her off behind her back. "I caught that," Wufei said, and Duo grimaced. That was the thing about people in relationships. They ganged up on you.

The silence after that was amiable, finally broken when Duo couldn't take the suspense and asked Sally if she even knew what the title of the book she'd pretended to read was. In fact, she did, but only because she kept the book in her purse to re-read some of her favorite passages, which Wufei informed him she had memorized years ago. She did not, however, tell him what this title was, or what the book was about. Duo decided, out loud, that it had to be either a cheesy romance novel or some sort of BDSM erotica. Wufei had flushed at that, and Sally had let out another raucous round of laughter at the two of them. They spent the last few minutes of the ride and the docking procedure trying to freak Wufei into messing up. They'd gotten to doggy and pony play by the time Wufei finally had them secured. As soon as the plane came to a stop, Wufei snapped. "Enough already!"

Another burst of chuckles, this time from the both of them, and Duo exited the ship and landed, favoring his merely twisted ankle over his fractured one, on the plane.

It was no use. He couldn't help but bond with them. They may have been different from the ones he'd known, but already, still, he desperately loved them.

He was in trouble.

Of course it didn't take long after he'd landed for Relena to storm out of Howard's ship. Heero kept close to her side, but Howard merely scuttled slightly off the edge of the ramp down before stopping. Relena practically threw herself into his arms. "How did it go?" she asked, even as the attempted to choke the life from him.

He awkwardly patted her back. Behind her, gaze as hard as ever but still stuck on him instead of properly watching the area, Heero stood sentinel. Their gazes locked. Duo felt something like hope flutter in his chest. Hope for an end? Hope that there was something of his Heero in the man? But as soon as he thought the second one, he hurt, like an ice storm, so cold it raged hot inside him. It whipped stinging nettles on his cheeks, brought tears from the icy wind to his eyes. He closed them tightly and turned his face away.

No. No matter what else he might think, he couldn't stand the idea of searching for a man who no longer existed in another. Especially... especially not _that_ man.

He ended up crushing Relena to his chest, just to have someone to hold on to.

Relena, at least, held him back.

When they finally released one another, Duo looked over the top of the floating fortress, since Heero was actually slacking off on the job for once. More people milled about than before, several of them carrying toolboxes or yelling at one another over the dull roar of the fortress' engines. Two women stood pointing at something – a jet in the corner of the flight path – and mumbling to one another. One raised her clipboard and whacked the other on the shoulder. They laughed.

No threats. Duo turned back to Heero, only to find himself still under the man's scrutiny. It reminded him, suddenly, of how they'd first reacted to one another. Heero, whenever he'd deigned to acknowledge Duo's presence, had always had that serious, furrowed brow, thin-lipped look to him, like he didn't understand Duo and didn't know whether to try to figure him out or just shoot him and get rid of the distraction. Duo figured he should probably do something before this Heero tilted to one of those sides. "So! What did I miss?"

Relena let him have his retreat. She even stood straight, looked him in the eye, and said, "Une's been quiet. Agent – Chang Wufei?" she asked, and continued at Wufei's nod, "has been missing since Une gave him his orders. According to Mr. Howard and... Mr. Yuy," she said, and Duo narrowed his eyes at the hesitation before saying Heero's name, "there has been no word or sign of Sloan since the attack. Someone sent a message over an encrypted channel to Preventers, informing them that the man has run from his estate and is missing...?"

Duo nodded. "Yeah. The place was cleared out, though he was obviously in a rush, so I don't know how well he's actually supplied. Quatre and his team will search around and find out what's missing. Then we'll be able to better piece together whatever the man's up to."

She accepted his words without question. Duo wondered if it was maybe just in the woman's genes, to end up hanging on to someone who saved her life. She eyed the open hangar that would lead them back inside the fortress, and the very state of her spine showed she didn't want to go. And honestly, he didn't want her to go, either. What he was going to ask was something he should say privately. And Relena, though he would like to inform her so she didn't hate Heero for his role, should definitely not be around for the negotiations.

"I need you to stay here with Howard," Duo told her. She looked uncertain, but Duo hadn't missed the sigh of relief, either. "I want to check on the other me, but I don't want you going that far in again. Just in case." He nodded over to Wufei. "I still trust him," he said. She nodded. Apparently going against Une's orders had made Wufei trustworthy to her, as well. "I don't think Une's a bad person, but I do think she may be ruthless, nonetheless. I'm all for ends justifying means, here, but even I have limits." He gestured over to Howard. "Go back inside the ship. Either Wufei or Heero can look after you. After we get things settled – sorry, but that might still take a while – we'll get you away from the Preventers entirely. Okay? We pilots will take care of this."

It was far more than Duo could ever be expected to hold himself to, since he was planning on not being around for it all. But really, Preventers potentially being dirty didn't change a thing. They'd never relied on Une and her people before. Time and time again, whenever things got messy, they may have gotten help from their personal friends, but they'd always just been five against an army. And they'd always come out on top, because they'd always worked together. If Duo could make that into a reality, nothing else would matter. Hopefully.

Heero's gaze, of course, had narrowed still further, until the look he sent Duo was somewhere just below searching and just above his infamous death glare. Duo cocked his head vaguely in the direction of the open hangar.

Wufei stepped around the lot of them, Sally once more pulling out her book. Duo caught the flash of the cover, and it didn't look anything like a cheesy romance novel. It looked like some really, really _old_ cheesy romance novel. Her grinned. Wufei caught the look. "I'll stay with Miss Peacecraft, if it's all right with you, Yuy." Wufei sent Heero a look that said he'd _better_ be all right with it. Heero, of course, ignored it like bad cheese. "I have to go over some security questions, anyway." Another glare. Heero didn't even bother blinking at it. Finally Wufei sighed and waved Relena to him. Relena cast Duo another glance before trotting up to Wufei's side. Her stance was far more rigid than it had been when she'd been next to Duo, but Duo supposed that was because she didn't trust the man fully yet. A nice change of pace from trusting everyone and everything, Duo supposed.

He turned back to Heero. "I have a question for you, too."

A grunt. Ah, Heero, ever eloquent. The feel of nostalgia made his stomach roll. Then it rolled again, much tighter, when he realized the feeling wasn't _nostalgia_ so much as _fondness_. He thought he might throw up.

He didn't even bother heading inside the hangar. He just brought them close to it, away from the hubbub going on around them, and angled himself away from both the surrounding Preventers and Howard's ship, where Wufei and Howard could easily be attempting to spy on them. Heero took his stance opposite Duo, his back turned to the end of the carrier so he could keep an eye on everyone around him. The man stared Duo down.

He couldn't believe he was actually nervous. About asking Heero about what he should do. Whether he should die. What exactly was he worried about? The man laughing at him, maybe? Heero just pulling out his gun then and there and shooting him, conversation be damned?

He took a deep breath. He had no idea why he had to do so. "I'm supposed to be dying."

"You haven't had an attack in quite a while," Heero said, catching Duo off-guard. He expected Heero to have noticed, of course. He just hadn't expected the man to care, let alone comment on it. So he ended up gaping slightly while Heero said, "you think it has something to do with the injury the other you sustained."

Duo nodded, still slack-jawed.

Heero just stared at him for a long, long time. Duo shifted on his feet. Heero already knew what Duo wanted to ask him. He didn't need to say a word. It left him in the awkward position of waiting to see if Heero would say anything at all, or if he would ignore the question as he had Wufei's glares. Or maybe Heero wanted him to ask it just to watch him squirm. Maybe he had no intention of answering, and he just wanted to see how Duo responded to it all. But then Heero spoke again. "There's no precedent for this. You're working off of hypotheses and rumors." The man turned away from Duo, toward the hangar door. "You do not owe him anything. Not until you know for sure."

Oh. Duo almost fell to his butt on the carrier's floor, something in him giving way. It tore and ripped and left blood, and when he touched his chest, it was raw. His heart hammered beneath his fingertips. Against the ring on his finger.

He didn't need to catch up with Heero. He could let the man trail off and away. He could catch up with his thoughts, think about exactly where Heero's words left him and what the feeling in his chest might mean for his future – if he even had one. It would certainly entertain him on his way through the halls back to the hospital ward.

Instead he hurried up to Heero's side and walked along with Heero's steady pace. They moved in silence past Une's people, both keeping an eye for anyone either too interested or too disinterested in them. Yet despite the tension – or perhaps because of it – the walk was nonetheless amiable. Duo was starting to wonder if everyone had been replaced by shadow puppets while he'd gone after Trowa.

The ward, when they got there, was eerily quiet. Duo swung his gaze immediately toward the room the other him was sequestered in, only to find the place sectioned off, the door guarded by a nurse, who sat in a chair and peeked in every once in a while.

He turned to Heero. "What happened?"

Heero's gaze was perfectly blank as he answered. "The leg got worse. The fragments of bone were getting into his bloodstream. The damage was severe. The doctors decided it would be better to amputate."

Duo's breath whooshed out of him. Amputate. To lose a leg was to lose a life. No running, no walking. No way to survive on your own. For a street rat, for a Gundam pilot, it would be a torturous way to die. Better to get shot in the head than hobble to your end.

Once again, Heero simply watched him. If he was looking for weaknesses, he must have had quite a list by then. The nurses bustled around him, a couple looking him over, up and down, likely mistaking him for one of the injured. (Or not mistaking him, considering his fractured ankle.) Heero's presence was likely what kept them from asking if he was all right. Well, that or they recognized him from before, or they worried he might be a really bitchy patient, which he often was, and wanted someone else to take him.

"Go," Heero said, his voice dropping to that dangerous edge he got when he was getting annoyed. But he didn't look annoyed. He didn't look anything. Stoic mask on tight and all that. Duo shot him another glance before he moved forward. He nearly tripped over his own damn feet.

Amputated. _Got worse_ , Heero said. Worse. And meanwhile, Duo had been moving around with an injury, otherwise perfectly okay. Was he feeling even better than before? He couldn't tell for sure. Not with the way his heart slammed against his rib cage and sweat slicked his palms. Heero had said everything he was worried about was little more than guesswork, and he was right. Should there have been an increase in his health if Senior's health dropped? Should it have affected anything at all? Had the reason his body had been denied by this dimension really just been because there was another him here? Or was it because he simply shouldn't have existed here to begin with? If the former, then why did it have issues with him but not with identical twins or genetic anomalies? And with the latter... what had made it stop?

If it had at all? Maybe, he thought, even as he knew the thought was little more than idealism, maybe this was the calm before the storm, just as he'd thought. Maybe it wouldn't really end up being anything but a break period before his body tore itself apart.

He did not have high hopes for this.

Heero did not join him as he moved to the room. The nurse by the door looked up as Duo neared. She must have not been on shift the last time Duo had come to see Senior, because her brows furrowed and she shot a quick glance toward the bed inside the room before fixing her gaze once more on Duo. One fake smile between the two of them gave Duo the chance to slip inside without actually having to attempt conversation. He very pointedly closed the door behind him.

The other him was an even stiller lump on the bed than he'd been before. He wasn't surprised to see Hilde leaning against the side of the bed, her gaze whipping to the door as it shut. She stood from Senior's side, but she didn't move to intercept or start screaming at him. He took that as a victory. In fact, as he neared, she actually moved back, away from the bed, to give him a semblance of privacy.

The other him was pale. Duo had heard all about people looking pale in their hospital bed, to the point where they'd say they looked nearly as white as their sheets. But Duo knew better. It wasn't that they looked as pale as _sheets_. It was that they looked as pale as those whose blood didn't circulate anymore. They looked like the _dead_. The other him looked right about there; save for the grimace that twitched along his brow and the edge of his lips, and the steady, if shallow, rise and fall of his chest, Duo would worry even more, even with the steady beeping of the heart monitor. The fragments had gotten into his bloodstream? How far had they gone? How close to the heart? How many? Had he needed to undergo surgery along with dealing with the amputation? Was it... was it _normal_ to look so beaten down after such a battle?

He gripped the edge of the bed until his knuckles turned white. He didn't know. Should he listen to Heero? Heero, who had been surprisingly considerate? Or should he expect the worst, give the worst? He looked over to Hilde. She didn't look at him at all. Her eyes were for the other him alone. She, too, seemed to watch the sheet over his chest as he breathed softly in and out. Because this Hilde, too, recognized death when she saw it.

He looked down the length of Senior's body, his eyes inexorably drawn toward the legs, where the sheet sank to the bedding in a place it should have tented. That empty space sucked at Duo. Was it his fault?

"Has he woken up?" he asked. He'd wanted to break the silence before it pressed any harder against his chest, but instead the sound of his voice made him flinch. Even against the backdrop of that monotonous beeping, Duo's voice sounded like a gunshot.

Just looking over to Hilde gave him his answer, before she even had a chance to open her mouth. Still, he stayed silent and let her answer. "No. Well, he did for a short time, before the... the operation. He already seemed to know what was going to happen." Her lips thinned. "I... he asked the nurses and doctors to keep you in the dark about this. How did you hear about it?"

"He did what?" Duo leaned back from the bed. The other him lay still as a corpse, his braid on the pillow beside him. It was a mess, and stupidly, Duo wondered if he should rebraid it. As if that was what was important at the moment. "And Heero told me."

"He shouldn't have. Duo didn't want it." For a ridiculous second, Duo actually thought she was talking about him. Good grief, he was already thinking as Senior as Senior. "He thought you would blame yourself for it. He was adamant you not be told until he could be awake to speak to you."

All feeling left him in a rush. The room spun. The other him had known. Well, of course he would. He'd _been_ Duo just half a decade go, after all. He had to understand the belief that Death hung in his shadow, snatching away those who stood too close to him. He had to know Duo would feel guilty over this. And apparently he'd made the choice to protect Duo from the truth.

He leaned over the bed and gasped for air. Had Heero known? Why had he chosen to tell Duo? He might have thought it some cruel trick, if only Heero hadn't also plainly told him he should live.

Oh. Thank everything he'd decided to ask Heero instead of... instead of choosing for himself. He should have thought about how the other him would feel. Of course the man would know exactly why Duo did what he did. And whether it worked or not, hadn't they bonded, as well? Wasn't Duo already thinking of him as some sort of brother? What if he'd actually taken a gun to his head? How painful would that have been for the other him? If he'd recovered, he would have felt it to be at the cost of another life. Like his own body had sucked up the life from Duo's. Of course he would never be happy about that. And, gods, what if he was wrong? What if it changed nothing, and the other him still suffered without relief? What horrible weight would that have caused? To know someone you cared about had killed themselves to protect you, only for their lives to have been wasted for nothing?

If Duo was in the other him's position, of course he would react the same way. He collapsed into the nearest chair, a meter and a half away from the bed, far enough that all he could see of the other him's prone body was the sheet over his chest and his nose.

"So you had." Hilde looked torn for a moment, but then she crossed the room to his side and knelt down, one callused hand gripping his knee. She waited until Duo met her gaze. "Do not harm yourself over this. I won't lie and say I'm willing to have you go away for Duo's sake, but he won't stand for it. He likes you." She bit her lip, and for an instant, he was once again reminded of the Hilde who had been his friend. "He didn't have anyone before you. Myself, and Howard, and the Sweepers. And yet no one. So I think you have a special place in his heart. That makes you indispensable to me, too. So I'll do whatever it takes to keep you here."

Hilde's loyalty hadn't dissipated at all. It just was no longer focused on him. Well. That was fine; apparently he and Relena could hang out now. It was just like Wufei had said – after five years, things had to have changed. But that doesn't mean that it had to be a bad thing, right? He could get to know these people, right? Without having to worry about his continuing existence being a sin?

He wanted to see Heero.

He turned. Of course he couldn't see the man through the closed door, but he knew he was out there. There was no way Heero would leave. Not when he could learn more about Duo and the other him and Hilde and everything else.

And also, possibly, he wouldn't leave because Duo wanted him to stay?

But that... that was something to worry about later. When he wasn't reeling over hearing that the other him had demanded he stay alive.

He had permission to be selfish in this, too.

He patted Hilde's hand, and she pulled it away. "Okay. I get it. No suicide for me. It's not really my style, anyway. I'm probably really bad at it. Not like I'd know, you know? But probably. You need practice to be good at something, so I figure, probably really bad at it." He stood, trying to make his escape while his mouth ran off without him. "Tell him he doesn't have to worry. Okay? If he wakes up, I mean. Well, of course he's going to wake up, but I mean after he wakes up, if I'm not here, tell him I haven't offed myself, all right? I need to – Sloan's still out there, and I'm going to... maybe..." He inched back a bit. "And if someone comes in here with only one eye showing past his ridiculous bangs, he's a friend. Of mine. I make friends. Apparently." He looked over to his other self. He needed to get away. Hilde was not a friend of his, unlike the other him or Trowa – well, maybe Trowa? Gods, even his brain was starting to babble now. "So I'm gonna go."

She grabbed his arm as he turned to leave. He seriously considered throwing her off. "You really are just like him," she said, and gave him a small smile. "He'll be happy to hear you're staying alive. Go and fight if you have to. He'll be getting a prosthetic, and Howard and I will make sure he's safe here while he goes through recovery."

He froze. His little evasion dance had been seen through faster than usual – well, it was Hilde, of course, so that was to be expected. Normally. The reassurance made him unsure. He looked back to the other him, unmoving save for his chest, the sheet below his knee hauntingly flat. A prosthetic. Recovery. His life wasn't over. Other than Sloan, things were peaceful now. The other him had time to get better.

This was an injury. It was _normal._ The other him had already been wounded from battles earlier, during the war. An injured veteran on a battlefield risked further injury; that was just obvious. If it hadn't been for the sudden disappearance of his own 'injury,' he wouldn't have thought anything unnatural about it at all. Senior wasn't the first one to lose a limb from battle. Of course there were treatments.

He covered his mouth. The ring on his finger pressed once more against his lips. Sure, it could all be because of him. Of course it could be linked to Death's Hand. But maybe it wasn't. Heero was right. It could very well be completely normal. Just a consequence of fighting. It might have nothing to do with him at all.

And if it did, the other him would be just as hurt by Duo trying to save him at the expense of his own life. All he would be doing now if he killed himself was insulting someone he cared for, and leaving yet another scar on his heart.

Hilde let him go, and he nearly ran out the door. When he opened it, he was unsurprised to find that Heero had vacated the nurse from her seat and had taken it for himself. The man sat with his legs on the ground, his arms crossed, and his head hung, eyes closed. He raised his head and opened his eyes as Duo closed the door behind him. "So," Duo said after clearing his throat. "I'm sure you heard all of that, right?"

Heero grunted.

He hung his head. "Of course you did."

He looked at his hands. The sight of the black ring surprised him, even though he knew it was there; he'd looked at his hands for nearly two decades, and there hadn't been a black ring except for the past however many days he'd been in this dimension, after all. It would make sense for the sight of it to make his brain wobble for a second.

He wondered if his fingerprints and Senior's fingerprints were the same.

When he flexed his fingers, his joints moved fluidly. When he clenched them into fists, his knuckles pulled white across the bone. The small scar from blocking a knife, a tiny slash along the back of his left hand, sat pale and milky against the pink tinge of his healthy skin. He looked normal. He felt, other than the pain throbbing dully along his ankles, perfectly normal. Could he just be acclimating to this new world? Could that be why the pain was gone?

He clenched them again before looking up at Heero. Once again, the man had that closed-off, assessing gaze from before. Heero stood smoothly as Duo watched. "You've decided to stay, then."

Duo nodded slowly. "For as long as I can." He tried a smile and hoped it sat right on his face. "You going to shoot me?"

Heero stared at him. The man's frown sat proud on his face, but for once, his eyes weren't nearly as hard as they normally were. And then the man actually sighed, and something completely different – and familiar – and _new –_ broke out over that face. "No."

No. A new wave of shock ran over him. Despite the fact that Duo had been nothing but annoying and dangerous to him since they'd met, Heero didn't intend to kill him. Of course he didn't. He'd even told Duo to at least wait before choosing to kill himself. Even though it would only work in his favor if Duo died.

He looked at those dark blue eyes, and his heart skipped a beat. He slammed a hand against his chest. _No!_ Do not – you can't! It's not actually him!

The need to run swamped him all over again. "Thanks. Thank you. For – everything. And for not killing me." Stop it, heart. Stop that. You can't do that again. You can't, you can't, you can't. Not with him. Of all people, not with him.

Heero just watched him, those blue eyes almost hooded. "Why don't we... head to Howard," he said, amazed he actually had shortened breath. Like he'd gone on a damn marathon instead of just trying to get himself under control. "And I can find out what those two Sanc pictures mean?"

Heero hn'ed. And waited. Oh, right. Because they were both already standing up, and the only thing left to do was walk back to Howard's ship, and Heero would never take point and show Duo his back.

"I wouldn't..." He stopped, because he didn't want to reassure this Heero that, if only for _his_ Heero's sake, he wouldn't ever attack him. Sparring? Sure. Actually, for real, fight him? Nope. He wouldn't be able to make himself beat the ever-loving snot out of that face, even if he could.

So he turned and walked. Heero fell into step nearly right beside him, only one half-step to his back. They stood once more nearly side-by-side. It was something they'd done coming to the hospital, and he hadn't even noticed. It hadn't even hit him that Heero no longer walked behind him, ready to shoot him in the back if he so much as twitched wrong. Nearly side-by-side; a whole new level of trust for the perfect soldier.

He took a deep breath. He couldn't let himself do this. He just wanted to be friends. He didn't want... that kind of attachment again. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his ring. He wouldn't be able to do it again. Once was more than enough.

They arrived at Howard's ship without incident, even though Duo had been sure Une would crawl out of some crack and light his ass on fire. Howard met them just as they stepped onto the bridge, practically bouncing on his heels as he led them inside. Relena sat in a chair in front of the Star Trek monitoring boards, and Wufei leaned against the wall by the entrance, Sally sitting and reading at his feet. Duo waved at them both. "Not going to report in to your superior?" he asked in greeting.

"We have no obligation to do so," he said. Duo thought again about how Wufei had supposedly been chosen to work for Une and hadn't actually wanted to. Could he bring it up without making the man angry or uncomfortable? This one seemed way, way calmer than the Wufei he'd known, but he was sure that, if the ma lost his temper, he'd be thunderous about it. Some things would never change.

"Oh, right. Because your agreement was to keep her in check, right?" Duo chuckled. "Gods, she must _hate_ that."

Wufei grinned. For a moment, the sight threw Duo once again. "Of course."

"I have something for you, if you want to see it," Howard said. The old man raised a brow high above the rim of his glasses and pointed toward the three monitors behind him. "I can only assume that's why you're dragging this drama onto my ship?"

"Old man, you know you would be bored to tears without us. You like soap operas, anyway. It must be nice to have one live on-stage before you."

Howard sent him a long look before finally saying, "the guns on tv aren't going to fire on me."

But Duo just snorted. "Yeah, like any of us would miss."

"Exactly," the old man said, and Duo conceded the point with a short chuckle. Howard lightly pushed Relena and chair both aside and typed in a few short commands. "It seems there was something hidden beneath the bowels of the Sanc estate. Where one might think there was only a place to store mobile suits – an interesting find in and of itself, I would say – there's something even deeper." A few more clicks, and the old man stepped back with a flourish. "There."

Duo leaned forward, Wufei following close behind him. Heero kept his distance because, of course, he probably took a look at it all himself before letting anyone else see it. "Is that a bunker?"

"Nope, it's just meant to look like one." Howard pointed to the screen. It was more than blueprints; Duo's Heero had obviously delved into the depths of Sanc's deepest secrets himself. There were 3-D diagrams of the place, including pictures and projections, and finally a summary of Heero's conclusion. Duo looked over the room dimensions first – it was large, huge, even, big and empty enough to appear to be another hangar, as he'd suspected it to be. Shields hung up on the walls, and tapestries, so it looked like some sort of museum room. But the floors, old Heero had learned, were thick steel, the walls the same. Soundproofed. Bulletproofed. And the tapestries were set up and strategic positions. Duo leaned in closer, as if doing do could give the pictures better quality. But while Duo didn't doubt Heero had used only the best software, it seemed Howard had needed to use earlier versions of whatever Heero had done – the finished project had likely been lost in the frying of the system.

"Hidden storage?" Wufei guessed. "Of what?"

"Everything." Howard grinned as he clicked Enter. The stupid damn 3-D rendering was a fuckin' video. As Duo watched, the thing, in shoddy strips that had likely been fixed later by anal-retentive Heero, had the tapestries fold to the side, allowing cracks in the wall to open up like doors. The floor. Tiled by wooden boards, also spread wide, in four separate points, from one side of the room to the other.

As soon as the outer walls showed their hidden stash, it was apparent they held information. Books, folders, files, and what looked even like it might be scrolls flashed up. A brief summary of contents flickered over the images before disappearing; another part of Heero's work that was forever lost. But while that may have been interesting, what caught Duo's attention was the stuff in the middle partitions. That was _not_ information. No part of it looked like any kind of paper. If other information was stored on computers or hard drives or disks, then he might have, for an instant, thought that perhaps it was merely a new way of cataloging information (it certainly wouldn't have taken up as much _space_ ). But no, because even though the middle was blurry, slightly pixelated, and in one square area flickering between pixelated and some weird gray screen of nothingness, it was clear that the items placed in glass – or, more likely, bulletproof glass or plastic – weren't computers in any way, shape, or form.

"Are..." Once again, Duo leaned in as if it might actually do something for him. "What the fuck _are_ those things?"

"That's an energy source," Wufei said, pointing to something really tiny on the screen that burned a bright ice-blue. The next thing he pointed to looked like a giant balloon gun. "That's a field generator; it can likely create some sort of barrier. And that – that large ring? The thing standing on its own, without being placed on a shelf?" The thing Wufei was pointing to looked like it belonged on an episode of Doctor Who – a tangled web of cords and switches, with ridges that showed where each piece had been locked into place with each other. One side of it was trapped in the gray death screen when Wufei lightly tapped at it. "That looks like it might be a dimensional vortex."

Duo frowned. Wufei's voice sounded very grave there. "And what's that?"

"If it works?" Wufei leaned back again and crossed his arms. "It may be a way for someone to travel between dimensions."


	11. A Chance

Duo paled.

A way to travel between dimensions. A way for him, potentially, to return to his own universe. The one where everyone was dead and everything was gone and nothing remained but chaos and destruction, the one he'd tried to save until he'd wound up here, in the middle of a completely different universe, with the same but different people whom he'd ended up falling in love with and didn't want to leave.

But this might be it? This might be the answer he'd been looking for, the way to take care of the other him without giving up his own life. (Well, not giving up his life like the ability to live, even if he ended up living like an empty shell or a puppet until he was inevitably taken down by the remnants of White Fang.) And he would be – he would eventually die over there, no matter what happened. But he wouldn't be killing himself. He would... it could...

But he _didn't want to_. He _liked_ it in this universe. He didn't want to go back. He had friends here, all over again. Friends who had once been enemies, rivals who had once been friends. He had a new home. (Well, actually, he was still homeless, but that wasn't the point at the moment.)

Wordlessly, Relena stood from the chair and led Duo to it. He nearly collapsed into it.

He looked over his shoulder, to the man leaning slightly against the wall of the ship. Heero. His heart thumped in his chest at the sight of him. He turned straight back around. Fuck. It wasn't supposed to be doing that. He wasn't supposed to think about _Heero_ first! What was wrong with him? Falling in love with a different version of the same man – that was just messed up.

Which wouldn't be what he was doing, anyway, because he had enough complications to deal with as it was, and that... that would just be... he nearly slammed his head into the desk. Thankfully, the keyboard caught him. It would be really bad.

"Uh, the keyboard..." Howard said. Duo didn't bother looking up. Even practically broken, Heero's laptop wouldn't freak out from a few random buttons being pressed.

"Hm. Interesting."

That, spoken softly by Wufei, was what made Duo lift his head. He stared at the middle monitor, at the text now smack in the middle of the unfinished modeling. "In summary," it read, the block of text shifting back and forth into that gray screen of death, "I hypothesize that these items have been secured due to their high potential threat level."

Reading it took a while, since he had to time his reading with the moments when the text was visible, and when he was done, he slowly read it again to be sure. "Potential threat level? Of a Star Trek portal?"

"It could very easily be used as a weapon," Wufei said. He stood straight, his black eyes glaring down at the monitors. "One could bring weapons back, or send people or objects away – or they could attempt to go back in time, or forward in time, or to assess other dimensions and how they turned out, and manipulate events to suit themselves. I can only surmise that Oz and Romefeller failed to find whatever secret there was to finding these items, or else we would have, at the very least, experienced far more difficulty in defeating them. At worst, with some of the things available there, we may very well have lost."

Duo leaned back in the seat until it squeaked. "But of course Heero got through, because the man's a fuckin' beast." A soft shift of clothing told him Heero had reacted to that in some way. He didn't bother looking back to find out how; he didn't care. Not at all. "But the fact that they didn't redo the estate – that means they at least know it's there, right? Is there any chance Sloan knows?"

"Most likely," Heero said, speaking up for the first time. It was instinct that had Duo turning to him then. He found Heero's eyes on his, and suddenly he was spellbound. "The weapons would make him stronger."

"Then destroy them," Relena said, her lips thin. "Get rid of them. Why does Sanc even have such things?"

"Because," Wufei said. The man's gaze switched from staring at the monitors to frowning slightly at Duo and Heero. "While there is great potential for harm with these machines, they can also do a great amount of good. That energy source looks like it might feed a city for a full month – but of course it could also be used to power terrible weapons. The energy emitted by that device may create a barrier, but it could also be used to crush entire buildings. I've already explained how the portal, if that's what it truly is, could be misused."

Relena shook her head. "So, what? We keep these things, knowing they could destroy the world, and hold them until, what? We have enough to stop anyone who might want to use them for harm?" The look on her face plainly said she didn't think that an appropriate reason. It also sounded, to Duo, like a stupid one.

"Knowing your father, the old Sanc monarch," Howard said, his voice soft, "he likely kept them for the time when humanity matured enough to use them responsibly."

Relena snorted. "That time will never come."

Duo knew better. Really, he did. But he couldn't help himself, nonetheless, from looking at Relena like she'd spit flowers all over his face.

She raised a brow. "What? It's in people's nature to be selfish opportunists. How many wars have we started? How many times have people chosen violence over communication or good will?"

Duo cleared his throat. "I thought you were all for pacifism? Do you think it against human nature? Do you think it's impossible?"

Relena shrugged and leaned against the counter. Duo helpfully moved the keyboard away from hip. "No, not really. There are people out there who help others." She stared right at him at that one. "People who do the right thin, despite the danger."

Duo ducked his head. He tried to cover it with a quick laugh. "Yeah, okay, I get it. Sing my praises."

She smiled brightly. "People like you, like everyone in this room, help others at their own expense. I met a few people like that when on the run – people who gave me food, or shelter, or kindness. But there were far more who tried to take advantage of me, or harm me, or hunt me down. And a huge amount who saw all of this and did nothing. I saw the true nature of humans – apathy. So long as they can have what they want – so long as they're comfortable – they don't care about anything else. Those with empathy, more often than not, are hurt. And hurt. And hurt. Until they, too, learn that apathy is best. That's what humans are. A social creature in a constant, uneasy truce, ready at every turn to betray or be betrayed, because unity is only a word that means 'us against them.'" She took a deep breath. Duo reached out instinctively, his body moving all on its own, to grab her hand. Because yes. _Yes_. She knew. She understood. Running alone on the streets, trying to survive when everyone else bought fuzzy coats and five pairs of shoes and fifty dollar sconces or posters for the walls of their cozy homes, each and every one of them pretending they don't see the haggard face of the person huddled under the overhang of the store. Relena squeezed his hand tight. "People have the ability to be kind. But they almost always choose not to be, because it takes effort. Because it takes time. Carelessness is so much easier."

Heero shifted again. Duo's shoulders itched at the familiar feel of the glare against his back. What did he do? But while he wanted to check, he didn't want to pull away from Relena. "So why?" he asked.

"Because I don't want to lose my empathy," she said, her voice nearly a whisper. "We have the ability to be kind, after all."

He gusted out a breath. "But that technology – you don't think people will use it for good."

"There will always be someone who would use it to harm. While many would applaud their usefulness, it would only be a matter of time before someone chose to use them to take instead of give."

Duo nodded. "But unfortunately, the technology in your world is spiking. How long before someone who _only_ wants to use it for good makes one?"

She frowned.

"Maybe," Duo said, "old Peacecraft thought of that, too. If these things are going to be used, they should at least be used to help others as much as possible. Or maybe he wanted to find an alternative way to create them that negated, or at least lessened, the dangers. We can't know; it's too late to ask him. In any case, it's your decision now. Whatever you choose, I'll stand by. I just want you to know all the information first. And if nothing else, I highly recommend at least one person, someone you trust, reading all that crap on those shelves."

Relena lifted her chin. "You."

Duo pulled his hand from hers and waved them both in her face. "Oh-ho-ho, no. Not me. Don't force that much reading on me. That's cruel and unusual punishment."

She snorted. And finally, he got a chuckle. "All right. I'll consider it."

Wufei put one hand on the back of Duo's chair. "Good. That's settled for now, then. We'll leave the choice of what you do to you, Miss Darlian. The information found here will not leave this room. But we must also ensure Sloan does not access that vault."

Vault. Huh. Duo guessed it was. "So what? We have no clue where the man decided to run off to, and the one person who might have a good idea hasn't yet shown up." At Wufei's frowning gaze, Duo expanded. "Well, it's not like I wasn't going to try to get Trowa to join us. You know? That kind of is my main goal here."

Wufei gusted a familiar sigh and pinched his nose. Well. That old habit of the other Wufei was present in this one, too. "Maxwell. Tell me you didn't."

"I didn't." Wufei scowled at him. "What? You told me to tell you–"

"You know very well what I meant. You have made this even more difficult for us."

"Duh. Wild card." He waved his hand. "On another note, though, I don't think Trowa's a danger to anyone. If he wants to join us, then he can. If he doesn't, then he can choose that, too. He didn't shoot me, even though he had the chance."

"What?" Relena said, leaning in to look Duo over like he might suddenly projectile bleed all over the ship.

"He – you have no idea what he looked like. Whatever he's dealt with, it's been hell. I wasn't going to turn him out or turn away from him just because the circumstances seemed bad. Five years ago, in another world, he was my brother."

Wufei's mouth opened and closed. He sighed again and slumped slightly. "Fine."

Sally, silent until this very moment, giggled at him. Wufei shot her a dark look.

"What can we expect from him?" Heero asked. Those dark eyes were assessing him to the bone.

"I don't know. He's different. You all are, remember? You aren't the same people I knew."

"What was he like in your universe?" Wufei asked. The question shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. The suddenness of it was what made him flinch. Wufei backpedaled. "My apologies. Of course that would be a cruel question to ask. The losses are still very new to you."

Duo took a deep breath and smiled a brittle smile. "No. It's fine. People die. I've known that since I was a kid." Still Wufei looked less than impressed, and even close to self-recrimination. He hurried to continue. "Trowa was a solid guy. Really solid. If you needed something – anything – he would help. He wouldn't even offer. There was no turning him down. He would just do it, whether you wanted him to or not. Whether it was hiding a body or just listening to you spill your guts. He – oh. You probably meant, like, fighting-wise." He cleared his throat. "Right. Well. He's kind of a dancer, I guess? The guy is crazy acrobatic. When he moves, it's like he's water. I – I can't explain it. Wufei – you're all about form. You move like like – like a panther, I guess? Smooth, but concise, powerful strikes. And Heero's all about power. Like a snake? Or something? Huge, great power, and fluid, but – but his strength makes him slower. He's more likely to strike suddenly, in one strong blow – really, really strong blow – than fight a long, engaged battle. Trowa's more like..." He waved one hand idly, his gaze staring at nothing as he considered. "A swan? No, that's ridiculous. More like... like a dolphin, I guess?"

Howard laughed.

Wufei lifted a brow. "A dolphin."

"Hey." Duo pointed at Wufei's nose. "I will have you know that dolphins suck. They don't just beat the hell out of sharks and shit, they kill porpoises and stuff for fun." Wufei's other brow rose. Duo flushed. "So I might watch some animal shows. Sue me."

"Dolphins are mostly known for their playing in the water," Relena said, bringing the conversation back around the something resembling the original point.

"Right." Duo nodded. "Even when they fight, they do that kind of stuff. They – they leap, they loop around, they... they _dance_. That's what Trowa does. Every movement has a point, but they're just... pretty." The word sounded wrong, but it was true. Watching Trowa, one couldn't help but hold their breath in wonder. With Heero it was more being dazzled by his sheer ability; his form was purely militaristic. Trowa had learned how to fight just as hard, but his training had been nothing but life itself. While Duo had learned how to hide and strike from darkness, or from camouflage – like a mantis, he liked to think – Trowa had learned to fight with unorthodox moves that seemed to use up too much energy, but always hit. Because on the streets, if it worked, it was good enough. That was how Trowa fought.

"He also takes orders without question," Duo said. "And he's... I mean, let's face it; he's a mystery. He keeps everything close to his chest, so half his decisions, I don't get. But they always seem to work out well."

He found himself twisting Trowa's ring on his necklace and stopped. As if no one had noticed; Heero's gaze was locked on his necklace, and both Wufei and Sally were making effort not to do the same. Relena just leaned on him, giving him something else to do with his free hand by making him have to prop her up.

"You want to take care of him yourself, I suppose?" Wufei asked. Duo nodded. "All right, then. We'll attempt to find Sloan in other ways until then. And I suppose I should get in contact with the pilot up there? Of course I should."

"Quatre already contacted you, though. What do you need to talk about?"

Wufei gave him a look like his brain must have been dribbling out his ears. "We should coordinate our efforts. We're part of a team now."

Duo's breath caught in his throat. Wufei's eyes shone clear, no indication of irony or sarcasm. Duo looked over to Heero. Not one word of argument. His heart thudded in his chest. Could it actually be happening? Could they be forming an actual partnership? Camaraderie? Could it be?

Relena leaned on him a bit harder when his hand twitched to his neck. Right. Right. He nodded dumbly. "Yeah. That would be – that's a good idea." His head floated somewhere above the top of Howard's ship, dancing perhaps even above the decks of Preventers' airship to drift among the clouds. Wherever it was, it wasn't there in the room contributing to anything. "Right," he said again. Or maybe for the first time.

"I... I'm gonna go see... um..." He waved his hands like a demented bird. "Okay. Cool."

"I'll go with you," Relena said, already starting to follow him.

"I'm gonna need you to stay here," Duo said. At the look spreading on Relena's face, he hurried with, "I promised I'd be alone."

Though she frowned rather epically at that, she didn't bother trying to argue. He patted her on the head for the acquiescence, and the action earned him a glare in return. It was a surprisingly beautiful look on her face, no matter that it didn't seem to suit her. Her eyes sparked blue fire. It lit her whole face in a faint light.

He retraced his steps to Senior's room. Hilde slept by the bed, resting now that Senior's message had been successfully delivered. Senior still sat same as he had just half an hour before, pale and ghost-like, the soft susurration of his breath the only indication of life. The heart monitor beeped so softly he'd thought it just some noise of a machine until he realized the sound nearly matched his own heart. He found the machine and watched the little green line spark and jump a few times before turning and leaving the room.

He had no way of knowing whether Trowa had already arrived or not. But if _he_ , taking the more leisurely route, managed to get back, then Trowa in a hurry would have, as well. Well, it all depended on whether Trowa thought he needed to hide away or be cautious. If this didn't work this time, then he would just try over and over again until it did. If he was going to put Senior in danger, then he should make sure he didn't squander the time.

There weren't many places onboard a floating fortress that a person could reasonably expect to be uninhabitated, and even fewer that actually were. Duo made it seem like he was checking out the ship's workings and defenses as he made his way through the generator room, the coolant room, the weapons maintenance rooms, and even cleaning supply rooms, until finally just picking an empty staff lounge room and standing at the door, glaring at anyone who attempted to enter.

After all that wandering, he really didn't expect Trowa to show his face at all. Even if Trowa had gotten to the floating Une 'copter in time to see the older Duo and then wait for Duo to show up, he probably didn't follow Duo all over the damn building just to wait for him to finally find a place where they could speak alone. He waited five, ten, fifteen minutes, and finally had to escape before the receding agents got tired of his shit. Where was he going to go? Back to Senior's room? Back to Howard's?

He stopped in the middle of some gray hall, walking from the smaller office rooms and toward a group of meeting rooms, and scrubbed his hands over his face.

A way to return to his world. A room filled with unknown _things_. Items that could be used as weapons to completely annihilate the planet, even more thoroughly, perhaps, or at least more creatively than Zechs himself had attempted.

And his world, his dimension. With those weapons still sitting there, waiting to be used by those White Fang supporters, his dimension's citizens completely unknowing and unprepared. And if those supporters ever figured the secret to obtaining them and learned how to use them all, then not only was his dimension in danger, but any other dimension those psychos could get their hands on.

He shuddered. Maybe... maybe he _had_ to go back? Just to level the Sanc estate, to make sure every other dimension was safe.

He clutched at his heart. He didn't want to go. He didn't want to do it. God of death himself, he'd thought he'd been ready to give up his life, but he'd just been holding onto it greedily, fighting Death's Hand every step of the way. And now, now that he knew even this world was in danger from the plague his own had become, he was still flinching from it?

Should he really wait for Trowa? The very thought of betraying him, of leaving him without every speaking to him or holding up his end of the bargain, hurt. But then again, wasn't it just another excuse to put off going back?

"He could simply be your older brother," someone said by his ear. He yelped like a little girl and turned in the air, reaching for a dagger up his sleeve before he recognized the words and realized the person with hair slicked back was actually Trowa. And _whoa_ , did he look weird with his hair actually pulled back. That gaze of his had gone from serious to downright soul-searching. Duo blinked at it a few times before coming to grips with the fact that, yes, Trowa might very well have covered both his eyes simply to keep from scaring the holy piss out of random passersby.

"Oh, yeah? Well... your mom." He thought about that for a second, then, "and why would my older brother also have a braid? And these handsome good looks; no amount of genes could replicate all this."

Trowa's lips twitched, even as his brows furrowed. It looked like an angrier, two-eyed version of his old Trowa's confused face.

The hall wasn't empty, and a couple of people looked at him funny. But they looked at _him_ funny, not Trowa. Even though he was clearly thin, Trowa had apparently decided to use that to his advantage. Tiny fake cups poked his chest out slightly, and his Preventers uniform – and where, pray tell, had he swiped that from? – had that weird flaring thing at the bottom of the shirt going on that said it was a woman's. (Why did Une even have uniforms that differentiated sexes? The other Une hadn't.) Trowa's hair, when pulled back, apparently had a pixie look to it – either that, or Trowa had done it on purpose. Which meant Trowa had hair styling abilities that Duo had never known about.

"Wow," Duo said finally. "I have never seen you with your hair pulled back like that."

Trowa's glare, when he had both eyes, almost made the running for scariest. If only Duo had never seen Heero's. "And if what you said is true? What does that change?"

"It changes your options," Duo said. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, looking for all the world as if he was highly put upon. "While I haven't told the others about you showing up here – though Heero likely knows by now, because there is just no hiding anything from him for long – no, don't freak out about that. Heero's an observer when it comes to information. He won't do anything so long as it's clear you and I are doing something." He moved as if to wave his hand in explanation, then remembered he was supposed to look annoyed. So he blew his bangs out of his face instead. "Don't freak out, but we are on-board Preventers' ship-in-the-sky having a conversation in the middle of a hallway, and Heero has this _thing_ where he has to constantly watch everyone all the time because the man needs to know _everything_. So while I haven't told anyone anything, that doesn't mean he doesn't know. He _is_ one of us pilots, after all."

While Trowa did not seem fully comforted, he no longer appeared ready to bolt, either.

"Anyway. While I haven't told anyone about you coming here, I have told them about the other you, and about my hopes to get everyone together. Everyone's on board with it. Even Quatre! You know, the one who chased you and tried to kill you? He's very sorry about that, by the way; expect his apology if you stay." A snort. "No, seriously. Quatre and Wufei are just the _worst_ when it comes to apologies. They're so sincere it's embarrassing. No way that's changed. You'll forgive them just to get them to leave you alone."

A small flicker of a smile. A small, infinitesimal light in those serious eyes. Duo dared hope for even more.

"I can't say you'll all get along, because I know you guys aren't exactly the same as those I knew. And even the guys I knew got into fights a lot. But they stuck together. Which means you have the option to not be alone anymore. Though why you're alone I have no idea; did you and Cathy pitch a bitch-fest or something?" Trowa gave him a blank look. And something like horror brewed in Duo's chest. "Oh. No – no Cathy? Did you not meet her? _Fuck_. I'll see if I can find her for you. If she's – I'll see what I can do."

"Who is she? My wife?" Trowa asked.

Duo shuddered. "Oh, gods, no. Ew. What? Uh, more like a sister than a girlfriend. A very overprotective sister? Although the two of you were getting some sort of test in my world – my dimension – to see if you were actually related. I don't know. You didn't talk about it. You – he – said he didn't want to get his hopes up. And maybe you won't get along with her here. I don't know. But at least there's something more to look for than – than whatever shit's happened to you recently."

The entire time he spoke, Trowa's expression didn't so much as flicker. No more half-smiles, smirks, or pulled brows. Nothing. Pure Trowa poker face. Whatever was going through his head, he wasn't impressed by Duo's words. Not that he needed to be, or even should have been, because really, if anyone popped into Duo's life and told him what Duo had just spouted off about, Duo would have laughed the idiot right back out of his life.

"Whatever the case," Duo said softly, "I don't want you to be alone. Even though you aren't my Trowa, I already know you're a good enough guy to not shoot someone who has no intention of shooting you, even when your back is to the wall. Isn't that enough reason for me to want to help you?" He thought about that as someone passed them, their gazes so solidly not looking at them it was plain they wanted to listen in. "Well, it may seem weird. If I was still on the streets, it would definitely be weird. We would have to test you a little first. But what the hey! I'll risk it. Why not? Why not be stupid every once in a while? It's good to give your poor brain a break every sometimes."

"Your brain seems to have had too long of a break."

The shock of it made him laugh more than the joke. Trowa looked angry with himself for saying it. Or, well, maybe he was still keeping himself under wraps, and the default look with two eyes was just too different from the look with just one that Duo couldn't tell anymore if he was apathetic or pissed. "Sure, if that's what it takes to get you to at least consider what I'm saying. I'm willing to be an idiot if it works." He grinned. "Well? Will you at least let me treat you to some food or something? I think you're even taller than the man I knew, and that means you need even more meat on you to stay even the healthy sort of slim." Trowa didn't look pleased. "Or just money? Or a drink? Something, man, I feel like I'm looking at one of those dogs on those animal shelter advertisements."

"So you pity me."

"Of course I'm feeling pity! Dude, your uniform is pulled in at the waist and it still sags. And your little fake-boobies aren't even properly tenting that cotton-polyester blend. I feel bad for it. The shirt, I mean. It's trying so hard, but there's just not enough to work with. Please let me help that shirt."

The look on Trowa's face changed so quickly it was comical. What was definitely a furrowing of brows and lips suddenly popped into a wide-eyed, loose-jawed look that, quite frankly, would have been hilarious enough without the unintelligible, flabbergasted noise that slipped out from the man's mouth. "What? You..." Trowa looked down. "The _shirt?"_

"Look at it, man. Look how hard it's trying. It wants so badly to camouflage you. I mean, think of the personal sacrifice involved in hiding you within its folds. And then you don't even help it pull it off? Selfish." Duo tsked. "The least you could do is eat enough that it looks like it's packing more than a skeleton inside it."

Another glare, but it wobbled like Trowa wasn't sure Duo wasn't somehow poisoning him with every word. Really, Trowa shouldn't have even been trying. Hello? Heero? Far scarier? Well, the man didn't know Heero yet. He would learn. "You want me to replace the other Trowa. The one you knew."

Duo held up his hand in the universal 'stop' symbol, all traces of humor immediately gone. "No." His other hand slid up to his neck. He pressed against his shirt, until he could feel the ridges of his cross and the rings on either side of it. "You can't – I don't want to try to replace them. There's no way to. They – I knew them, and they knew me. No amount of being around you could ever..." His lips twisted into something he hadn't wanted to show Trowa. Something almost feral. "He's dead. I will never see him again."

Someone had been about to turn down into their hall; Duo heard them promptly turn around and head back. Yeah. No one wanted to walk in on this kind of conversation.

Trowa's two-eyed gaze looked just as hard as ever. He said nothing as Duo finally lowered his hand, ridding them of the distance he himself had created. Duo kept his own gaze steady, even though he wanted to look away. Especially when Trowa's gaze dipped to his collarbone, where, Duo was sure, the edges of the necklace could be seen. Finally, after such a long eternity that the hall once again filled beside them, Trowa nodded. "All right. You can give me money, and I can go find a meal."

Duo beamed the man a zillion-watt grin. "Perfect! You can choose whether or not you want to meet the others." He dug into his wallet, not caring what the passersby thought anymore, and handed Trowa a thick wad of cash, almost everything he had left from his shopping spree. "I – I think we would all love to have everyone together. We have a banner to rally under, you know? Protecting the Sanc Kingdom and its princess."

"She was a princess in your dimension?"

Duo laughed. "Queen, actually, for a little while. She hated it when I called her princess, though." The Relena here might just pop him one. The thought made him grin. "But whether you want to join our merry band of misfits or not, if you could help us with Sloan, that would be phenomenal."

"Whether you planned to help or not, I intended to take down Sloan." Trowa turned away, likely ready to leave Duo behind.

"We do. Plan to help. You really don't have to be alone anymore, Trowa."

Trowa stopped. His back, turned to Duo, looked so thin and worn. But at least now his shoulders were straight. "The only one offering me more is you. And you're dying."

Duo shrugged, even though Trowa couldn't see it. More people were starting to look their way; it wouldn't be long now before too many eyes turned to Trowa. "You haven't even met the others – you haven't even spoken to Quatre, I'll bet, and you haven't even seen what the rest look like. Hell. Without even knowing each other, you all worked to bring about this peace, right? People who give up everything for the fight – for the right of _others_ to live in peace, even though they themselves don't think they'll live to see it – there has to be _something_ redeeming in these sorts of people, right?"

Trowa's shoulders slumped.

"Trowa. I may be dying." And he had no idea what was going on there, actually, so 'may' was definitely the best word to use, "but that doesn't mean your chance for happiness is dying with me."

More stares, and Duo knew Trowa was going to leave, if only to avoid more. Yet still the man was quiet. Still he stood there, even as someone stopped and frowned at them. Duo snarled at them, but apparently making an agent who appeared to be female slump their shoulders and look at the floor was enough to garner a glare back instead of any backpedaling.

"We'll see."

The words were little more than a murmur before Trowa slipped away.

Just barely – because really, a Gundam pilot, from any dimension, should have a little more decorum than that (and because Trowa could very well catch him doing it), he refrained from doing a jumping fist bump into the air. It took a lot of strength of will.

Of course, getting Trowa to say "we'll see" didn't _guarantee_ anything, but it meant the man would at least try to speak with the others, or at least spy on them a little bit. Not that spying on Heero would work well. Or on Quatre; the man was surrounded by an army, for gods' – oh, whoops, _Allah's_ – sake. But, well, a rocky start was still a start.

It meant there was a chance for all of them to become a team. Not the same kind of team they'd been in Duo's dimension, but a team nonetheless. And who was to say they would have remained the same kind of team after five years? Their bond would have changed. Duo doubted it would have broken, or even been frayed, but it would definitely have altered as they within themselves alterations made. (Was that a quote from something? It sounded like a quote from something. Maybe Shakespeare.)

A chance. He hadn't actually thought he would do it. He didn't really know where to go from here. Getting everyone together had been the goal, and granted, that hadn't yet happened, but... he'd facilitated all he could. From here on, it was up to all of them. Up to Quatre to try to mend things with Trowa. Up to Trowa to give Quatre and the others a chance. Up to Wufei and Heero to stick with it, to see where this truce of an alliance could lead. Up to the other him to wake up, to get better – to at least get well enough to see how he felt about all of these people Duo had brought to his side.

And up to Duo to fade away, before any more bonding could take place with him instead of Senior.

The danger in his other dimension was the perfect excuse to escape. Before he did any more harm.

He turned down one hallway, then another, half afraid he'd managed to get himself lost in the middle of the crazy flying ship. But then someone raced past him, and he didn't care where he was. "Hey! What's the rush!"

The woman turned to him. Her eyes widened. "You!"

Duo backed up a step. "Uh..." He looked behind himself, stupidly thinking she had to be talking to someone else. When he turned back, she was much closer. He backed up some more, wondering if he should make a break for Howard's ship?

"You! Come with me!"

Oh, just great. What the hell had happened with Une to make the woman sic her goons on him? He didn't relish fighting his way through the damn ship. Especially when he might potentially be sort of lost.

She reached for him. He snatched his arm away, but the frustrated screech made him pause. That was not usually a battle sound. "What?"

"He's making a mess!" She said. And okay, that was a weird battle cry. Was Heero on a rampage? Trowa? Why? "He keeps demanding proof you're alive, so you have to come with me. Now!"

"Who? Where?" And Duo crossed his arms, refusing to budge.

The woman looked like she was ready to shoot out his kneecaps and just drag his bleeding carcass behind her. "The hospital! He's destroying the place, and we've been ordered by Agent Chang not to harm him!"

_Senior._

Duo shoved the woman out of his way and ran.


	12. The Formation of a Team

"Get off of me!"

It was the first thing Duo heard when he entered the helicarrier's hospital wing. The second thing he heard was something crashing. He hoped it wasn't anything that had been helping Senior recover. He knew very well that, when pressed into a corner, collateral damage didn't really get enough focus.

There was a wall of people, carefully keeping themselves away from the fight, keeping their hands up for Senior to see, yet still blocking his escape. It was smart. Kind of. Only, Duo was more than just a soldier. He was a street rat. Street rats reacted very, very poorly to being trapped somewhere. No matter how unassuming or unarmed a person seemed, the feeling of not having an escape made claustrophobia slam through his veins, no matter how much space he actually had. So Duo shoved one man out of the way, nearly making the poor nurse faceplant on the floor. He hopped over him and hurried to Senior's room.

The door there was also blocked, and this time Duo just grabbed the man's shoulders and threw him back. Of course everyone started shouting at him. He just turned and glared at them all. "Just get the fuck out of here!"

The slamming, angry sounds stopped dead.

"See?" Duo heard Hilde's voice drip from the doorway outward. "I told you. I talked to him myself."

"Duo!" Senior shouted. "Get the fuck in here!"

Duo did.

The room was a wreck. It was all he could see before the other him punched him in the face.

It wasn't that the move was a surprise. But the very weirdness of it all – of another him punching him in the face – yeah, that threw him off enough that he took it nearly full on. He barely kept his feet beneath him. Someone shouted again behind him. Duo vaguely waved whoever it was away. "Okay. Feel better?"

"You idiot!" Senior snapped. Duo caught the high flush on the man's pale-white face, the sweat beaded on his forehead and lower lip, before he even realized Hilde was helping him stand. On one foot. Duo's heart lurched at the empty space. "How dare you – I know you enough to know what you were thinking and you are _never_ to consider it again, do you hear me?!"

Duo rubbed his cheek, because _wow_. Was that what all of his enemies felt when he hit them? Geez. "I didn't even do anything. Calm down."

He heard someone move behind him and wondered if the woman who'd found him had finally caught up, or if Wufei was coming. He didn't bother looking around to be sure. "You were going to," Senior said. "I know you were. You were going to throw your life away like a fucking _idiot._ "

"Are you calling yourself an idiot?" Duo asked. He was amazed the other him didn't hit him again. He held up his hands. "How are you feeling?"

He managed to get another quick look around the room. Apparently Senior had decided all machines in his room were his enemies. They lay either on their sides or in pieces along the floor. The walls had a few small dents in them, likely from Senior's fists, since he... couldn't exactly kick anymore. The sheets covered a few of the machines as if chastely covering their gruesome remains.

Apparently, Senior was feeling well enough to make a huge mess.

"I'm _fine_. I'm just – there was always a chance that this would happen if I got inside Deathscythe again," Senior said. He stood straight despite the sweat beading on the back of his neck. "It has nothing to do with you coming here. You feeling better..."

Duo held up a hand. "Hold on; when did you hear about that?"

The other him glared. "Oh? So you _were_ going to do it! You shithead!" And he moved to punch Duo again. Almost, Duo dodged. Then he saw Senior's leg wobble, and he knew if he moved, Senior might fall. So he took the second hit, too. Senior looked like he wanted to strangle him. "Don't pity me, you dick! And did you really think I was, what? On death's door? From losing a _leg?_ This isn't the Renaissance era, you moron! Of _course_ I'm going to wake up! Of course I'm going to hear things, see things – of _course_ I'm not going to be idiotic enough to show I'm aware when I'm in enemy territory! Who the fuck do you think I am?"

Huh. Okay. So maybe Duo should have given Senior a little slack on that. Then again, he'd truly thought he was sapping the other man's life force from him or something. Not that that might now still be the case... it was just a little difficult to believe when the man was shouting at and decking him. "Oh." He didn't want to say it. Saying it would make him sound petulant. It might also make him slightly vulnerable. Still, the words slipped out. "I thought..."

His face must have done something. His face definitely did something, something horrible, because Senior calmed right the fuck down, and every single one of his features softened. "You idiot." And Senior ruffled his hair like he was a kid. Hilde's face didn't soften, but she still looked more concerned with Senior's status than with anything Duo might say or do. "You know damn straight it's harder than shit to kill us. But my leg was already busted. It's no surprise I couldn't keep up. And if I was going to lose something – and it was obvious I wouldn't be able to dodge those two suits the moment my leg buckled – I was going to lose my shitty leg, not my good one. This was my decision. It has nothing to do with you." Gently, Senior pushed Hilde away and hopped forward. There was sweat all over his face. "Hell. If you hadn't gotten that other pilot to come help, things might have been so much worse." Senior actually leaned down and pressed his sweaty forehead to Duo's. Duo trembled at the proximity, at the meaning of the act. "Thanks, little brother. You saved me."

Despite the clammy feel of Senior's skin, despite the faint tremors Duo felt coming from Senior's hand on his shoulder, despite the slight rocking as Senior attempted to re-learn his center of balance with one limb missing – despite all of that, what Duo felt was not grief, or regret, or fear. For the first time since he came to this new world, he felt boneless with relief. Relief to have been brought here instead of to his world's past, relief to have stayed, to have looked for everyone, to have pushed forward. Relief, because his life might not have ended with his world. He had no idea why he was still alive – why he wasn't dealing with the pain any more. But he was _happy._

Oh, gods. He was starting to feel like he _belonged_.

"Now sit down and _rest_ ," Hilde huffed, glaring at Senior the way Duo had only seen her do to him previously. "I _told_ you he hadn't done anything. If he's like you, then promising not to do anything is the same as not doing it, right?"

"You have no idea how many times I've created loopholes in my promises," Senior smirked. But he did retreat, because it was clear he was about to collapse, and there was no way he would have that. Duo did not want to admit that he'd already done so.

Senior's comment brought out an even more dangerous look: instead of glaring, her eyes narrowed. And glinted. Demonically. "Oh-ho? Like what?"

"What kind of moron gives that away?" And Senior hopped back into bed. He almost missed; his leg trembled under the strain. Duo only then realized how, even though he himself had been leaning primarily on one foot, he still used the other for balance. Senior no longer had that. A wave of regret lanced through him. But Senior, though he seemed tired and shaky, didn't seem on the verge of dying. He looked okay. Duo held on to that.

Hilde left off the argument to fluff up Senior's pillows and get the sheet over him. Duo knew Senior needed a bath; she couldn't have missed the sweat caking him as she helped maneuver him underneath the covers. But she wouldn't permit an audience, and she wouldn't let anyone else do it. So Duo had to leave the room and likely scare away anyone who would try to do anything.

But though he said his good-byes and made to do just that, there was another commotion going on all around him. Wufei, who had indeed guarded the room from intruders, was barking quiet orders to the few people who weren't either panicking or cleaning up a mess that surprised Duo; he hadn't thought Senior had made it out of his room. Maybe people had just clamored away in fear and horror at the idea of a Gundam pilot going hysterical in a hospital room. "What now?" he asked.

"It appears we have a diplomat coming aboard," Wufei said, his lips twisting into a frown. "Someone you know?"

A diplomat? The only one he knew was Relena...

Wait. A grin broke out on his face. "Quatre?"

Wufei just sighed. "I had hoped you were referring to someone else."

Duo laughed and clapped the man on the back. Wufei didn't seem to know how to respond to such an action. "Of course not! That would be much too simple. Besides, how many people in the world could actually have that name?"

"Well, I suppose I was right to call off the worst of the royal relegation."

Duo blinked. "The what?"

"The protocol that tries to play the diplomat for a fool," Wufei said. Duo was pretty certain that wasn't how Une would have explained it.

"Ah. Yeah. Qat wouldn't have any patience for that."

"I'm sure." Wufei looked around the place; the hospital was starting to look more like a hospital again instead of a train wreck, and people seemed to actually be attempting to get back to their respective jobs. That just left the entire rest of the building. Duo wondered if Trowa was still on-board, and if he was, what his reaction to Quatre's arrival would be. But he couldn't worry about that at the moment. "How was your attempt to contact the last pilot?"

Duo gave Wufei the fish-eye. Did he know? Had the man read his mind there, or had he just used his usual perfect timing? "I tried. I can't make any promises that it's gonna get through, though."

Wufei nodded. The silent pause was just long enough to make Duo look at him again. There almost seemed to be a flush. "And... your illness?"

Duo shook his head. He watched two nurses push a gurney across the room. Behind them, leaning against the wall like a port in a storm, was Sally. Heero must have stayed with Relena, then, and let Wufei out of the duty in order to let him take care of things on-board the ship. "I don't know," he confessed. He could only shrug helplessly at it all. "I haven't hurt for a while yet. And the other me seems okay? I just..." He grimaced.

Wufei's face didn't seem to know what to do, either. "It would be so much better if we had data on this. Anything."

But the fact was, they didn't. If someone had traveled between dimensions before, there was no record of it. Perhaps whoever may have used the dimensional portal in Sanc's secret underground had died before they'd been able to return. Whatever the case, Duo was on his own.

Wufei sighed. "So all we can do is wait."

And yeah. That was about the size of it.

"I'm certain we can at least attempt to check you over, see if there's anything we can learn," Wufei said. Duo gave him a look. "After this is over, of course."

"Until then," Sally said, breaking into their little lovefest with a sharp clap on Duo's shoulder, "you're in the exact same boat as the rest of us. No idea when you're going to die, or what's going to get you. Lucky duck."

Duo grinned.

Sally was the first one to turn toward the docking bay where Howard had holed up his ship. Duo almost bounced his way there; he was actually looking forward to it. To seeing Howard, to meeting with Relena and giving her the news – he was even looking forward to telling Heero. Even if the man ended up killing him. Which he didn't _think_ would happen, since Heero was the one who had told him to just go ahead and live and see what happened. But with Heero, one could never be too sure. To him, repression was an art form.

There was some sort of honor guard formation to the Maguanacs when Duo, Wufei, and Sally reached Howard's ship. They stood in two lines before the entrance to the ship and one beside it, keeping Une's Preventers from getting too close. When they saw Duo, several tilted their heads in greeting. Duo grinned wider at the sight of Rashid, who had apparently decided to trim his beard a bit more conservatively since the end of the war. No longer was the thing shaped like an M. "Hey! Did Quatre tell you about me?"

"The younger one with the braid, I assume." Rashid didn't hold out his hand to shake, nor did he pull away from the defensive position he'd taken in front of what had to be Quatre's ship. "I've been informed."

That didn't wound welcoming. But then again, they hadn't been introduced in the same way, and this Rashid wasn't the same man Duo had known. "Right. And are you going to bar us from Quatre?" He raised a brow.

Rashid looked from him to Wufei, then to the group of Preventers hanging out in front of their ships, acting almost like they were facing off in some stupid battle in the middle of a freaking hangar. But Quatre's ship was freaking _huge_. While Howard's was only of natural size – two bedrooms, a galley, and a cargo bay that had been redesigned for Howard's toys, Quatre's was big enough to hold a hangar bay of its own. Over two-thirds of the Maguanac core watched over its entrance. Undoubtedly, Sandrock waited within. Likely, by now, Deathscythe, as well. "Who's he?"

"A pilot. The blond is his wife."

"Did you just describe me based on my hair color? And just as _his wife?!_ "

"It's how he knows you," Duo said, flinching away in case she decided to show him just what she thought of that. After a moment, when he was fairly certain he was safe for the moment, he straightened again. Of course, that was when she hit him. Duo yelped and rubbed his arm. _"Ow."_

Sally huffed.

Rashid watched all this with raised brows. They went even higher when Wufei turned on the Preventers agents and ordered them to go away and "actually get something accomplished for once."

It took a while for the space to clear, if only because, one, it was a pretty big hangar, and two, despite the hangar's size, Quatre's ship pushed the walls to their limits. So while people walked around the cargo bay and its overseers and ducked beneath the emergency pods in the back of the ship, Duo entertained himself with peering over Rashid's immense shoulders and shouting, "hey! Qat! You in there? Heero! I know you missed me!"

And after a few moments, just before the last of the Preventers stragglers left the bay, Duo heard Relena shout, "oh? Were you gone?"

The surprise of it got him laughing almost in Rashid's face.

Apparently having the not-princess take pot-shots at someone was a good enough reason to let them through, because Rashid finally stepped aside. One warning glance was all he offered them as they passed.

Relena had apparently switched over to Quatre's ship – likely a haven in the storm, as she'd probably had occasion to meet with Quatre before. The ramp up to the bay of the ship was long enough to nearly smack Rashid in the head, even as he stood back to let them through. Duo led the way up, smiling and waving when Relena peeked out from the edge of the ship. A moment later, she turned around and spoke to someone beside her. And then Heero stepped out.

Duo's heart fluttered in his chest.

Oh. Shit.

He couldn't help how wide his grin got; he could only hope Heero didn't read anything more into it than friendship, or maybe a desire to prank the hell out of the man. "Hey! The other me woke up! Loudly."

"We heard."

For a second, Duo thought he meant he'd heard the commotion all the way from the hospital ward. Which, whoa. But he probably just meant they'd either been told or had checked it out on the cameras. Which made far more sense.

They were almost to Relena and Heero when Quatre stepped out, as well, immediately looking Duo up and down. "So it's true? You're no longer experiencing the effects of having traveled through dimensions."

For a greeting, it needed some work. But Duo just shrugged. "Apparently?" He gestured behind him. "These are Wufei and Sally. Wufei's a fellow pilot, and Sally's a kickass doctor who just happens to be blonde-haired and married to Wufei."

"Better," Sally said.

Ignoring whatever danger Rashid had thought he'd seen to order the freaking gate guarding – or just trusting the man to take care of it before he had to worry about it – Quatre moved to meet them. His steps were sure, almost regal. Like he was a diplomat moving into negotiations. When he stopped, it was right in front of Duo. Something darker than usual haunted those bright blue eyes. "It's good to see you."

"Standard diplomat greeting, Qat?" Duo grinned. "Come on, you can do better. Where's the 'thanks for being a punce out on Sloan's base'? Where's the 'hey, I have tea waiting, as always'? Give me _something_."

Quatre blinked at him a few times. "I do not always have tea on hand."

"Do you have tea ready, Qat?" Duo asked.

He nearly got Quatre to shuffle his feet. "Maybe."

Duo laughed. "Okay." He wrapped an arm around Quatre's shoulder. The blond stiffened, but he didn't shrug Duo off. "How about we go inside? Heero's in here? Is Deathscythe?"

"Yes. And Heero's Gundam, as well."

"He let you get near Zero?" Duo's eyes popped. He jerked a glance up at Heero. The man stood stalwart at Relena's side, arms crossed. Duo didn't doubt that a gun was in his hand. "Really?" He moved forward, further up the ramp. Quatre was forced to come with him. The blond seemed confused as to whether he should go with it or pull away. But still, he didn't do much more than send Duo several sideways glances. "Want me to get off?"

The question, as they reached the hold of the bay, seemed to surprise Quatre. He hesitated for a moment. "No. Your heart... is very warm."

Well, shit, even more warm fuzzies. He was in danger of a fluff overload. "Okay." Still, he moved his hand until it rested on Quatre's shoulder, his arm creating a safe haven between them. Heero looked upon them both as they came near. "Hey, Heero! Pretty big deal, you letting Quatre near your baby. May I see it?"

"Him," Heero said, correcting him, then, "no."

"Eh? Why not?" He got off of Quatre to lean toward Heero.

"Because you'll do something to him."

"Oh?" Duo straightened up and glared down his nose at Heero. "I'll have you know _you_ would be far more likely to do that! The other you, the first freaking time we met – well, technically the second? – stole parts from my Gundam to fix his own! I never got back back at him for that, either!" And he pointed at Heero, now only seeing the differences – the added height, the more angular face, the stronger chin and fitter muscles. And it pricked him that he was actually starting a fight as if he were speaking with _his_ Heero and not this different man.

He floundered. His hand dropped. Was he trying to speak with a dead man, or was he treating this man like him? No, no, thank the god of death himself, he'd kept the pronouns right. Hadn't he?

He shivered.

This time it was Quatre who initiated contact, touching his shoulder lightly. "Let's go inside," he said quietly. Relena came up and grabbed his other arm, practically dragging him within.

The bay was almost completely empty, save for Deathscythe itself, which had a couple of Maguanacs and Howard, who waved in greeting, around it, likely attempting repairs. Its leg had a giant hole in it. The plating and wires would all have to be replaced. Beyond 'Scythe was a large cabinet bolted into the wall. One Maguanac, a skinny, short man, was rummaging around and pulling out tools and circuitry, calling out softly to the others to tell them what he found.

Duo faded in and out as they moved through the ship. He'd slipped. For the first time ever, he'd slipped and actually thought about one of them like his own...

He shivered again. But it hadn't _felt_ like he had. It didn't feel like he'd thought of this Heero as _that_ Heero. It felt more like... like...

He groaned and covered his face with his hands, no longer moving ploddingly where Quatre led. It had felt like teasing. Like he was teasing this Heero the way he had his own. And that wasn't something he should be doing, was it? He didn't know this man. And even if – even if he _did_ like him, a little bit, for some reason, it wasn't like he thought of him as... he couldn't _afford_ to. Heero was _dead_. Nothing would bring him back. There wasn't some magical thing like in the movies, some 'ooh, new dimension, we'll just fall in love all over again and it'll be just like before a second chance' – that wasn't _real_. This man wasn't his Heero. So why was he practically _flirting_ with him? 'I never got back at him for that?' What the _hell_ was that supposed to mean?!

"Are you all right?" Wufei's hand pressed upon his back, and suddenly he was surrounded on all sides – Relena on his left, Quatre on his right, Wufei behind him. Where Heero was, he dared not venture. "Is it the dimensional repercussions again?"

He laughed. Holy shit, if he lived to one hundred, that question would probably never go away now. "No. It's..." He wrapped his right hand over his clothing and the necklace hidden beneath. His left, he clenched into a tight fist, until he could feel the ring pressing against his fingers. "Nothing. It's nothing."

Relena clasped his clenched fist in her two hands. Duo looked over to her. She looked up at him, then dropped her gaze to his hand. She rubbed her thumb over the pack of his palm, stared at the ring. Her brows furrowed. "One?" she whispered.

Duo cleared his throat. "Right. So where are we going, exactly?" He finally took in where he was. The galley of Quatre's ship, clearly. The counters were freaking pristine. And the place was _huge_. Duo stared at it, at the space he and Heero could lie feet-to-head and just barely hit the counter and the fridge on the opposite wall. If they moved the table, of course. The table at which Sally was already making to sit, pulling her book out to pretend to read again.

"Come on," Relena said, tugging him over to the table. She sat opposite Sally, forcing him to sit beside her. He did so, only then daring to glance up. Heero's gaze pierced straight through him. He clenched his teeth and stared back.

"I have an idea," Quatre said, "and I wanted to run it by an expert. Miss Sally, is it?"

Sally glanced up from her book immediately. "Just Sally is fine, United Colony Representative Winner." She grinned. "An expert? On medicine?"

"On treating the human body," Quatre corrected, walking over to take the seat at the end of the table to Duo's right. "While Howard may be useful for maintaining a Gundam, he isn't the one to go to on thoughts of a living being. Speaking with him hasn't afforded me much."

"I don't suppose it would. No matter how good he is with machines, understanding the dimensional portal wouldn't help you understand its effects on the human body." Wufei moved to Quatre's side. "It's a pleasure to meet you in a less formal occasion, Representative. I'm amazed you managed to hide in plain sight the way you did."

Quatre's smile was a little on the smirking side. "Not many people would suspect someone like myself of being a pilot."

Duo nearly bounced right out of his seat. They were talking! Bonding! Forming relationships with one another! Duo felt as if he should leave, get the hell out of dodge so that they could all get to know each other better. It wasn't his place; he'd already had his time with his group. These guys didn't know each other at all; for them, all of this was brand-new. These were their first memories together. But when he made to rise, Wufei and Quatre turned to him as one. "Hold on," Quatre said. "This concerns you; don't leave."

Duo sat back down. Relena looked him over, then nudged him. "They're your friends, too," she said, leaning in so her words didn't travel. The thought jangled around in his head. "In fact, they may be more your friends than one another's. No, don't look like that. There's nothing wrong with being the glue that keeps everyone together."

But it meant a completely different dynamic than the one from his world. Would that even work? Before, Quatre and Heero had been the unofficial leaders, those that the rest flocked around. It was to Quatre's parties and dinners that everyone else went, to Heero's orders everyone moved. If it was him? Ugh. Everything would fall apart. He did _not_ do dinner parties, and he wasn't any sort of leader of men. The one time he tried to lead, he got himself and his fellow rats caught. Heero or Quatre would be so much better.

But... he couldn't ignore the fact that they had, indeed, all ended up gathering around him, for one reason or another. They all knew him far more than each other. If nothing else, he should help facilitate this, right? At least until they started orbiting each other a little better. SO he nodded and leaned forward. "All right. If you're anything like the Wufei I knew, you're a disgustingly smart person with a lot of useless information."

Wufei raised a single brow. "Useless?"

"You know, the atomic weight of nitrogen and the meaning of erythrocyte and stuff."

Wufei rolled his eyes. "Yes, I have knowledge in science and medicine. I would not call that _useless_ , Maxwell."

"I've certainly never had need of any of it," Duo said, waving Wufei's words away as if they meant nothing. Sally bit her lip and eyed Wufei from her peripheral vision. "So he could help you, too, Qat."

Quatre nodded. He leaned forward, leaning his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers to rest his chin on them. "Here's what I've witnessed. Please tell me if I'm incorrect, or if you have anything to add. Duo Junior – ah." Quatre apparently caught the grimace on Duo's face. "Right. Well, I witnessed him suffering worse and worse attacks due to whatever was done when he moved through dimensions. According to the older Duo–"

"If I'm Junior, then he's Senior. It's only fair."

Quatre grinned. "Of course. That's true. All right, then. According to Duo Senior, they've been happening practically from the start. He witnessed what seemed to be only discomfort gradually morph into actual pain."

"I witnessed this, as well," Wufei said. "It seemed to be permanent by the time we went to meet up with Yuy." Wufei looked to Heero, then to Duo, who nodded in confirmation.

"They stopped after that, actually. Right as the fighting started. Do you think the adrenaline had something to do with that?" The thought had only occurred to him only vaguely.

But Quatre shook his head. "While that may have something to do with it, it isn't my hypothesis. It is something I would like to consider, however."

Duo saw someone moving out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Heero moving to lean against the wall behind Duo. And behind Relena, which would likely be his actual target. Hopefully. Heero wasn't really the type to stab him in the back. He didn't know this Heero as well as he did his own, but this one seemed as brutally upfront as his old Heero.

As if this new Heero was _his_. Ugh.

"Adrenaline could have jump-started his body's healing process, however," Wufei said, and Sally hummed in agreement. "It may have at least been a contributing factor."

"But that would have only pushed back the reaction until later. Until now, when there's no fighting and his body will have fallen back into regular responses." Sally propped her head up on one hand. "What's your idea, Representative?"

Quatre shifted slightly. "Quatre will be fine," he said. "In here, among us, there's no need for a representative."

"You're kidding, right?" Duo said. It garnered the attention of everyone. He sat back and crossed his arms behind his head. "There's no way I'm not going to mock you for that one. No way. Until the end days. You do realize they've been calling you that since they came aboard, right? But you only just now noticed?" Quatre blushed. Duo laughed. "You workaholic."

Relena covered her mouth. "He calls me princess," she told Quatre, as if imparting some great secret. "So it's only fair you get some horrible nickname, too."

"Hey, it's not horrible!" Duo said.

"What 'Qat' isn't nickname enough?"

"I had a million for Wufei, I'll have you know. Including Wuffles and Fei-Fei."

Sally burst out laughing.

"But you will not be calling _me_ those." And Wufei glared at him, finally taking a seat beside Sally.

"I only did it because you had a permanent stick up your butt," Duo said with a smile.

"Oh, my God," Sally said, vainly trying to muffle herself. _"Wuffles."_

"Don't you dare, woman," Wufei hissed.

"Oh, it's _on_ , _man_ ," she said.

It was so familiar! Even while it made Duo happy, it also left him confused. Five years' difference could be used as an excuse for differences. It could even help him deal with some similarities. But for them to be acting the same as they had at the end of the war, flirting with one another in their usual 'I'mma kill you' style, their freaking wedding bands glinting as they pointed their fingers at one another. It was surreal still. It would probably always be surreal.

"In any case," Quatre said, his attention on the two lovebirds as if perhaps expecting guns to be drawn at any moment – a not exactly unprecedented affair, if one included events in Duo's dimension, "my theory is slightly different from what Senior and Howard had said to you." He turned his attention back to Duo, ignoring the squabble like the experienced diplomat he was. "Instead of you constantly suffering under the strain of entering a place where another of you exists, I suggest your body rejected a world it did not belong in, and needed to adjust."

Wufei made an almost startled noise. "That's... not an unfounded claim," he said.

"That's his way of saying it's smart," Sally said. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling. "I can't say it doesn't fit the parameters, either. We should have considered it."

"Okay, call me an idiot..."

"Idiot," Wufei said immediately. Duo sent an almost startled glance Wufei's way; it had been just like what _his_ Wufei would have done. But, well, maybe Wufei, whether mellowed out by spending time with the other pilots or by marrying Sally, was still Wufei mellowed out. Maybe he just needed to accept that.

He cleared his throat. "Thanks so much, Wu-Wu. Anyway, I don't really get the difference. So either my body couldn't adapt to being in this new dimension, or my body couldn't adapt to being in this new dimension?"

Quatre grinned. "Almost correct. But instead of you slowly dying because you _can't_ acclimate to it, instead imagine you can. Instead of thinking having the other you and yourself at odds with each other, trying to cancel each other out, you instead are just another person. Like a disease, the 'weather,' shall we say, of this dimension was one your body wasn't accustomed to."

"Your body needed to vaccinate itself, then, against the different wavelengths of this dimension," Wufei said. He balanced on the balls of his feet, his eyes wide. "Maxwell. This may very well mean you could be safe now."

Sally hummed. "I don't want to get anyone's hopes up," she said. "I'd prefer to have some tests available. But what could we possibly use to measure whatever differences we're searching for? We don't even know what they would look like."

"Exactly," Wufei murmured. "If there was any chance of finding out whatever has happened to Maxwell's body, I would have already pursued such a course of action."

That was news to Duo. But according to the almost bored look on Sally's face, it wasn't to her. Strange. Duo had no idea why Wufei had bonded to him so quickly. Or what it might mean for his interaction with Senior.

"But the gravity of the attacks worsened, over and over again," Sally said. "It could mean more and more of his body was altering to adjust to this dimension, but it could just as easily mean something was worsening the initial – virus, let's say?"

"Dimensional virus?" Duo joked, and received a round of eye rolls. He sat back and turned to Relena. "Why am I here again?" he asked.

"I wanted your input," Quatre said. Duo sighed. He'd forgotten that Quatre could practically read minds. "The only information I can receive is from you. Your memories. Your experiences. It's all anecdotal at best, vague and disjointed at worst. But it's all we have." He sighed. Duo wondered if maybe he should apologize. For being vague and disjointed. Or something. "So you're here to answer questions."

"Wow. Sounds boring." He closed his eyes and yawned. "What about Sloan? Hunted him down yet?" He looked back to Heero. "Found him yet?"

Heero's gaze wasn't quite a glare. It was instead that almost considering look again. Like Heero was trying to figure him out. He had no idea why that made him flush. And shit, Heero watched it happen before looking up to the rest at the table. "I haven't found him, not since the moment you returned to the base. From what I can gather, he will attempt to return to Sanc undercover. Without his army at full strength, the best he can hope for is enough of a distraction to reach the estate before we stop him. It's a simple enough matter to guard the area ourselves. He can't afford to wait long. Une will have the Preventers hunt him down if he waits too long. He must go on the offensive soon."

Duo nodded. "And I have to..." He bit his lip. Looked down. When he looked back up, he saw something in Heero's face that said he already knew what Duo was going to say. It gave him the courage to continue. "If there's a dimensional portal here, there may very well be one in my dimension, too."

Quatre stilled. Wufei got suddenly very, very quiet. His gaze was hard. "Maxwell."

Relena stared wide-eyed up at him. "You mean..."

Duo sighed. "The survivors of White Fang – they could cause serious problems here, at the very least. They might bring weapons through, or forces. It's just... they're a threat. We can't just leave the portal vulnerable." He gave Relena a grin and caught himself before he shifted in his seat. "I'm obviously the clear choice for this."

"Absolutely not," Quatre said. Wufei nodded. "You came here because there was too much destruction in your world, right? You meant to go back in time." Quatre leaned forward. "No part of you belongs in that world anymore, Duo. You belong here. With us."

Duo jerked. Relena gripped his arm. He chuckled dryly. "Oh, yeah. You believe in Allah, right? You believe in predetermination, then."

"No. I stopped believing in Allah when the people I was training to protect killed my father." The words were blunt, yet nothing showed on Qat's face. Duo stiffened. "I believe only in what I see. Look around, Duo." And Quatre spread his arms, encompassing the table – the room. "You have brought together men who have never bothered to search for one another. For over five years, none of us bothered to so much as learn more than each other's names. And in such a short amount of time, you have brought us together in more than body, but also in spirit. Duo. You've reminded me why I chose to fight to begin with. You've given Chang Wufei a comrade. You've calmed Heero Yuy's restless spirit. Given Sally Po hope for her husband's happiness. Found Relena a validation for her efforts. Given the other you a family. "

Duo hunched down a bit. Everyone else, however, seemed suddenly a bit taller. Duo waved it away. "Don't worry. It's a thing he does. Calls it a space heart, or something?" He looked to Quatre for confirmation on that, since he'd been wrong about the Allah thing. Quatre nodded.

"He's right. I feel things. Emotions, or wayward thoughts. None of it solid or conclusive. I apologize for the invasion of privacy, but I hope to make a point. Duo." Quatre lifted his head from his folded hands. "Whether you intended it or not, you created a place for yourself here. While I do not disagree that we must consider this other dimensional gate, I do not agree that it is your burden to take on." He sat back, until his elbows slid off the edge of the table and his hands, still folded together, rested on it instead. "Besides. If I'm correct, you're already a part of this world now."

"If that's the case, then him returning to his dimension would harm him," Sally said, turning to Quatre more fully, leaning forward to look beyond Wufei. "He would be dealing with the exact same thing, except from the other side. Acclimating back to _his_ dimension."

"And if it's not," Wufei said, "whatever neutral state he's in now could be lost. He would either be perfectly fine, of hale health, upon his return, or he might relapse. And considering how bad it was before..." He looked to Duo. "There's a chance he may not survive longer than a few minutes back in his world."

They were starting to lost him again. Duo just shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head toward Relena. She seemed to be warring with something. "Upset at the thought of my going?"

"Would you come back?" she asked. Far blunter – far more astute – than the Relena he'd known. Damn, he really liked her.

That question shut off any further conversation between the nerds. Every single damn one stopped to give their full attention to him. "Um," he said. It was pure instinct. That much attention was never a good thing for him. Usually it meant it was time to duck and roll. "I..." He wanted to. But just saying that would never fly with this particular group. Even 'I'll try' would be met with resistance. Only the full truth would work here. "I don't know."

"I'll ensure his return," Heero said. He stood straight from the wall, even as Duo's eyes popped out of their sockets. "My crossing through with him may also answer some questions you have as to what his condition may be."

"Sounds good," Quatre said. Duo garbled something like an objection. Quatre sent him a look that clearly told him to shut up. "You'll accompany Duo Junior through the portal, then, and we'll defend from Sloan."

"Should we split up?" Duo asked. "What about Senior? And Trowa?" He caught the slight flinch of Quatre's shoulders and hurried with, "I mean, one's not able to fight, but we can't just leave him behind here, either. And the other – the other's thinking over his options by now, I think. We can't just leave _him_ behind, either."

"We have to hurry on both," Wufei said. "We can't afford to have an influx of people from your world. From what you've said, there's few good people left. Which means anyone with the means or ability to get to the portal is someone we don't want getting the chance to come through. Not to our dimension, nor to any other." He looked over to Heero. "But I disagree with the person going through being you. No offense, but I doubt you have the scientific expertise to ensure you return to _our_ dimension."

"Not to mention," Sally spoke up, "that going through could mean ending up in solid stone. Or dirt. Whatever that thing is resting in until raised into that secret room."

"We'll have to make our final decision after getting a look at the thing," Quatre said. "We may be jumping the gun here. It may not even work."

"As if we have that kind of luck." Duo scoffed.

"It works," Heero said. At the looks everyone gave him, he said, "I would have been thorough. The other me tested each item to assess their danger. From what little I could decode, he tested the gate. It operates. I cannot say if he tested it himself, but that, if nothing else, has been confirmed."

Duo's stomach rolled. "Then I have to go."

Relena's hands squeezed on his arm. "Not alone." Her nails were digging marks on his skin.

"This information wasn't available for decoding on Howard's computers," Wufei said, his gaze narrowing. "Why exactly did you take that information for yourself?"

Heero met Wufei's gaze without flinching. "Because I didn't trust you."

Duo groaned. "Here we go."

"I had no reason to allow anyone full access to such information. Not until I learned your interest in it." Heero's gaze flickered to Duo. "I took some of the folders coded the deepest. Within were the details on the individual items. Most of it was too fragmented to read, but some was still readable. The gate's basic information was included. According to what remained, it's clear the thing was, at the very least, operable. He seemed to only keep the machine powered on for short bursts of time for fear of awakening another somewhere else, or to leaving the dimension vulnerable to invasion. But I believe he would have enough mind to consider the possibilities you've listed, and to test them. If there were specific vulnerabilities in the design, I have no doubt he would have made these notes top priority."

"In other words," Quatre said, "if someone moved through the gates, if nothing else, they would likely land in the nearest space no occupied by solid matter."

Heero nodded. "Yes."

"Clearly," Duo muttered, and got a little giggle out of Relena. And a glare from Heero, of course.

"But that doesn't solve the problem with dimensional travel," Wufei said. "Maxwell didn't even use a gate. He used some makeshift contraption that was supposed to, what?" He turned to Quatre. "Take him back in time? It was a fluke. We have no way of knowing how to even get to his dimension, let alone how to return to our own."

"It's in the computer," Heero said.

"Is everything in that computer?" Relena asked. "May I see it? Maybe it has something there for me, too. The keys I lost my first week in the estate, for instance. I still don't know where they are. We needed copies made."

"I have them," Heero said. Relena's jaw dropped. Duo couldn't help it; he laughed. Hard.

"Of course you do, Heero. Oh, my god."

"The records," Quatre breathed. "Of course. Even if the circuits fried to hell, the records of the basics – enough would remain to give us the basic building blocks of what Duo did. Howard even tracked down the remains of what you made, Junior." Duo growled. It went either unnoticed or blithely ignored. "With all that, I'm certain we could work toward getting you across with minimal difficulty."

Duo clapped his hands together. "Great. You geniuses can work on that. Meanwhile? Will I be all alone guarding the place from Sloan?"

"We already have everything we need," Quatre said, crooking one finger over his mouth as he thought. "Howard has the materials you used. He and Wufei, I believe, would be the best ones to put it together."

"I agree. He won't stop tinkering with things. It would be nice to have it done somewhere else," Sally said. "I guess I'll be with you, then, Duo."

"No," Quatre said. Sally's brows shot up. "I'll need you to get Duo Senior in here. Junior's right; we can't just leave him behind. Especially not here, of all places. Besides, Howard's already working on his prosthetic."

"Preventers already has one," Sally said.

"Probably off-the-shelf," Duo said. She gave him a short look, but closed her mouth at that one. "Howard will have one specifically designed for Senior. And it'll be good. He's the best at creating mechanical limbs. And bodies. And suits. And if he has you to help him with the human stuff, it'll be perfect."

"Exactly," Quatre said. "And while I hope to get this research done within a day or two, before Sloan can crawl his way into Sanc, I can't make any guarantees. So you may also have to help with outfitting him."

Sally grunted. Then thought it over. Then sighed. "Fine."

"Good. That means Heero can stay with Duo Junior." Quatre didn't even look in Duo's general direction when he made a wordless sound of raging complaint. He just frowned at the wall. "I would prefer to have someone else with you, but I would need to keep each group coordinated..."

"Then I suppose I _should_ help you."

Everyone froze. As one, each head in the room turned to stare at the entrance to the galley, and at the man standing within it, his hair once more covering one eye.

The intercom on the galley wall crackled to life. "Lord Quatre?" Rashid's voice echoed through the room. "There may have been some sort of security breach. Are you there?"


	13. Heero

Give the man a freaking medal.

Duo didn't slow clap. But really, the only thing that held him back was the knowledge that the sound didn't accurately carry the weight that seeing someone slow clap did. He would just have to survive on snark. "An intruder?" Duo eyed Trowa up and down. "Like who? Someone from the Preventers? I thought they all cleared out."

Quatre stood very, very slowly. "Thank you, Rashid. It's fine. It's... one of ours. Continue standing watch."

Rashid was silent for a moment; the man wasn't stupid; Duo was sure he knew exactly what Quatre wasn't saying. That it was the pilot they'd hunted down in space. "Understood. Call me if you need anything."

"I will." Quatre stood frozen, his hands flat against the tabletop. His gaze never left Trowa. Duo slowly got up and moved to the intercom. He shut it off with a soft click. "I..." Quatre's throat worked soundlessly. "I must..."

Slowly, Trowa put his hands in the air.

Duo's breath left him in a whoosh.

"You're not under arrest," Quatre said. His voice was slightly shaky. Duo looked at him, at the pinched brows and the slightly open mouth and the body nearly reaching forward. All classic signs of Quatre feeling guilty. Well, looking at Trowa now, anyone could see he was a little hard up for menial things like food and a place to sleep and bathe. Quatre motioned him to a seat, but Trowa just kept his hands up and moved to the side of the door.

"So, he wasn't lying about this," Trowa murmured. "You really are all working together."

"I don't lie," Duo said.

"You just hide truths," Wufei said, turning a quick smirk on Duo before looking back to Trowa. While Quatre invited him openly, Wufei surveyed him with stiff shoulders.

"We're going to stop Sloan," Heero said. His gaze wasn't as suspicious as Wufei's, but it was assessing, nonetheless. "What is your intent?"

"To see where this is going," Trowa said.

Duo grinned. "Well, first it's going toward a meal, because this is Quatre's ship, which means he's got deliciousness, and I'm hungry as hell. Then we're going to grab the older me and bring him on-board, and we're going to take our fight to Sloan. You in?"

"'The other you' is out of commission," Trowa said. He still didn't move from the edge of the room. Ready to run if they all went on the offensive? Most certainly. But his own gaze seemed to be assessing, as well. Like he thought they might be trouble. The look disappeared into something a bit more... cornered. "I can only assume you want to use your Gundams?"

Heero's eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

Trowa raised his hands again. "I should know what's expected of me."

"Enough," Quatre said quietly. All heads turned to him. "Trowa. I can understand your skepticism here. We never came together, not even during the war. The risk we pose as a united force is one that shouldn't be taken lightly. You may think you've worked Duo Junior over when he asked you to come join us, but the truth is, he did that with all of us. He met the other him and, once he heard we were not known to each other, immediately attempted to bring us all together. I can assure you, his motives were pure. He heard the threat of Sloan as a minor nuisance. Honestly, Sloan would be, if not for his insistent attacks on Miss Peacecraft here." Quatre's hands settled on the table as he looked at Trowa. "Duo has no intention of using this alliance to harm anyone. And neither does anyone else. Now." He shifted again. "I must apologize for my actions earlier. No." He closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was something in them that flashed rather viscerally to the old Quatre. "I'm sorry. I attacked you without considering any other option. If you distrust me, it's only fair. But Duo's motives are genuine. Everyone else, as well. You may not trust my word, but it's true."

Quatre's 'space heart' or whatever must have picked up on something inside of Trowa. Both maintained a steady gaze on one another. Something in Trowa seemed to shift; his shoulders moved almost restlessly. So. Trowa had been at least slightly playing him before all this. But the fact remained that he was too skinny, his hair messy. Whatever he'd been playing, he still needed help. And he hadn't shot Duo when he'd had the chance. Maybe that was to get inside their little circle. Maybe not. It didn't matter. They'd all had to manipulate others to stay alive. It was easily forgiven, if the motive was good enough.

"Hey, do whatever you have to," Duo said, catching the room's attention. "If you think we're trouble, take us down. I'd prefer that to fucking up what I fought for. Well, I guess I didn't fight for it _here_. But I still fought for it." He waved the tangent aside. Sally made a small huffing noise. Relena grinned.

"Don't worry," she said, speaking up for him as if taking over a press conference. "All of these men have had the opportunity to kill me. All of them have had the chance to leave Sanc leveled, or to dismiss the issue of Sloan. They don't have to fight, but they do. Their minds are set to protect, not destroy. I trust each of them with my life." She laid a single hand on Duo's arm. "And if Duo says it, I trust him most of all. He has already saved my life, and he's given me someone I can count on when I didn't have anyone."

Duo shifted in his seat. "Cut it back, Juliet," he whispered. She laughed.

"Just to let you know, Juliet was of noble house, not a princess."

Duo rolled his eyes. "Semantics."

"And I'm not in love with you," she said, putting a finger to her lips. "At least, not that way."

Duo stared at her wide-eyed, Trowa momentarily forgotten. "You're in love with me?"

She shoved him. It almost made him move. "Don't be an idiot. Not that way. And there's no need to sound so horrified."

Duo squinted at her. "Then what way, exactly?" She rolled her eyes and refused to answer. "No, seriously, though, what are you talking about?" He tried to lower his voice to a whisper. "You can't just pop that word out and then start trilling a merry little tune!" He shook her lightly.

She just smiled.

"Reeeeleeeenaaaa..."

"That's _Princess_ Relena to you," she said, immediately ruining the statement with giggles.

Quatre chuckled. It pulled Duo out from the conversation, and he flushed. No one else was talking. They were all watching him. Great. Way to make himself look like an ass in front of someone hewas trying to get to trust him. And in front of Heero and Wufei, two men notorious for not having any shits to give for his brand of humor. He peeked out around the room.

Trowa's gaze caught his first, as the man stared with his one visible eyebrow raised. Wufei was next, his temple cradled in one hand as he shook his head slowly. He dared look behind him, ready for one of Heero's warning glares. Instead he caught Heero, not quite assessing him, but watching him. Instead of a glare, the expression around Heero's eyes was soft. Like he was about to smile.

Duo's heart thundered in his chest. That look wasn't one his Heero had worn. That man had broken out a small smile, or a tilt of his head. Yet this new expression, a smile with only his eyes, sent Duo's heart racing as if it was from his old Heero.

"All right, then," Quatre said, stepping away from the table. "I suppose this means I should get something started, shouldn't I?"

Duo jumped up. "Can you cook? I mean, no offense, but the Quatre I knew couldn't cook."

Quatre blinked. "If you weren't trying to be helpful, I would indeed take offense." But the man's smile softened his words. "Yes, I can cook. I've lived alone for a while now, and I don't expect my bodyguards to keep me fed." He moved to the bolted-down cabinets and clicked one open. "I can't make anything gourmet, but it's edible. Though, I suppose if you'd asked me during the war, my answer would likely have been 'no.'"

Trowa finally entered more fully, his gait slow. "Could I..." He gestured slightly toward himself.

Duo grinned. "Yeah, I think we could all use some bunking space. How many rooms do you have on this thing, Qat?"

"Five," Quatre called. "They're small, but they're serviceable." He hesitated. "It means at least one of us will have to bunk with another. I have a small medical room which will house Duo Senior just fine, but we have the five of us and Miss Peacecraft to consider, as well."

"I'll bunk," Duo called. "I just need a blanket and I'm good. Someone else can take the bed."

"That's stupid," Relena said. "You aren't interested in me, I'm not interested in you. We can share a bed. It's not weird unless we make it weird."

Duo was still pretty positive it would be weird. "It doesn't matter if it's weird or not; we can expect Hilde to want to come with us. Is it okay if you bunk with her?"

Relena pulled a face. "That's fine."

Even though Duo expected Hilde to not leave Senior's side, it was still best to offer her a bed, at the very least. Duo looked over to Quatre. There was no way he could sleep with Wufei and Sally, after all.

"I'll stay with Duo," Heero said.

Duo nearly jumped out of his skin.

Apparently he wasn't the only one surprised; Wufei was giving Heero a look like he was expecting the man to pull a chainsaw from his back and start slicing everyone open. Sally's mouth hung practically to her breasts. Quatre sent Heero a short look before returning to the cabinet and closing it. He moved to the refrigerator. Sally stood. "Anything I can do to help?" she asked. It looked almost like a retreat. Relena grabbed Duo's arm and looked back and forth between him and Heero.

Quatre motioned Sally over to a different cabinet and asked her to pull out a mixing bowl. Duo watched in fascination as the two of them opened several things of tuna and dumped them into the bowl. He would be okay with tuna sandwiches. It was one of the few things he could cook, too.

The relish, the mayo, the spices, were all added, and Quatre mixed it up. But when Duo expected the man to have Sally get out the bread, he instead pointed her to a casserole dish. Duo leaned forward. This was new.

"I feel like we might have a conversation starter here," Relena said, looking again between the two of them. "You want to bunk with him?"

Heero's gaze finally fell from the smiling eyes to something far emptier. "Yes."

Duo jumped up, horrified by the loss of that look. "Um, then let's go grab our room. Trowa, you want to do the same, right? Take a look around, make sure we aren't building bombs or anything?" As if no one else in the room knew he wanted a shower. But hey, appearances were everything sometimes. "Have fun. I think it goes without saying to not touch the Gundams, though. We're sticklers for that sort of thing."

Trowa lifted his chin in acceptance. "I understand." His gaze went back to Quatre for a second. Duo wondered if it was suspicion or something else, that ephemeral whatever that had made them instant friends in his universe.

Well, they would have the opportunity to talk while they were on-board, if Trowa decided to stay. They could go forward from there.

Duo grabbed Heero's arm and practically bum-rushed the door. Heero stymied his progress somewhat by walking at a reasonable pace, and with his strength, Duo had to either match his speed or look like a kid pulling his parent toward an amusement park. Relena watched them go. Wufei and Sally studiously did not.

The hall through Quatre's ship was wide enough to accommodate two people easily, three people if they were skinny enough. He and Heero could move side by side without so much as brushing up against each other's arms. Heero moved silently as Duo practically paced down to the second room. "The first is the captain's room. You would have chosen this one, right?"

Heero was silent for a moment. "You know me very well," he said.

"Not you," Duo said, his quick answer defensive. "But... someone like you."

Heero tilted his head. It was the way he showed he understood, and even respected, Duo's answer. Unlike the smiling eyes, it was not a new expression. This one made his chest ache in pain, not anticipation.

Heero opened the door and stepped inside. Duo knew Heero expected him to follow after him. And of course he did, because he had questions, and Heero would only answer them in his own way. This Heero, that Heero – in that respect, he highly doubted they differed.

The room's light flickered on as they entered. Heero stood beside the bed, leaving little room for Duo to shimmy around him and close the door. The slight room around the bed gave one the chance to reach the bathroom, which consisted of a toilet and a sink right next to each other. On the back wall was the shower, with just enough room to get the door open and closed. Ah. Spaceships. The glamor.

Duo made for the bed, just so that they wouldn't bump into each other with every breath. Of course, since it was a bed of Quatre's, it was like sitting on a cloud. Duo fell back into it with a sigh. "Mm. So. Question time."

Heero 'hn'ed. Duo shivered.

"All right." Duo twirled the ring on his finger with his thumb. "Why in the world would you want to bunk with me? Didn't you leave me for dead a couple of days ago?"

"Yes." Heero shifted enough to catch Duo's eye. He remained standing. He said nothing more.

"Right. Don't talk, then." He closed his eyes. He'd caught some sleep on his trip back to Preventers HQ, but it wasn't the same as getting some actual shut-eye. Too bad he'd called the floor; this was nice. "Did you know? The other Heero and me. We used to bunk together."

Heero stayed silent.

"Right. Guess it's rude to talk about the other you." He sighed. He hardly knew what to do with himself. Sleep? Would this Heero be okay with that? It wasn't like Heero was going to try to catch a nap before dinner, and Duo was really sleepy... "So, what? Do you want to check the room or something?"

"I already have."

"Oh, right." Because he'd already gotten on-board before Duo had returned. There was no way he'd have allowed Quatre to have Wing stowed without at least checking out the man's ship. He probably gave Quatre a thorough background check, as well. "Okay. So, then..." He looked over. Heero just stood there, doing nothing. Watching Duo. "What?"

"There's something I need to speak with you about," he said. Duo blinked. "Before we head to Sanc."

Duo's mouth flapped open for a bit. "Um... okay?"

Heero nodded then and looked away. His profile, the straight line of his nose, the dip and swell of his cheekbones, brought Duo's heart to thundering. He close his eyes. The feel of Heero's presence, so close to him, made him think of pillars and shields. He slipped easily into sleep.

* * *

Dinner was delicious, with a tuna casserole that consisted of the tuna, some sauce, bread crumbs, cheese, and peas – Duo picked out the peas, which made both Wufei and Sally mock him for refusing to eat his vegetables. Trowa, fresh from the shower, sat at the far end of the table, away from everyone else, and Duo sat with Heero and Wufei crammed on either side of him, an extra chair pulled to give Heero somewhere to sit. Relena and Sally spent half the time talking about being women in male-dominated roles, and Duo just stared at them both with wide eyes, not quite knowing whether he should fuel the fire by asking questions or just pretend he wasn't there.

Once they finished up, Duo got up to help clean, but was quickly waved away by Quatre, who called Trowa over, instead. Duo beat a hasty retreat, practically dragging Sally and Relena away, as well, before they could offer to join.

As soon as they were in the hallway, Wufei helped cart off his wife, who had already seemed to catch on. Relena cocked Duo a brow until he murmured, "leave them be, 'Lena." Though he suspected the only reason she didn't ask any questions was because she was beaming too widely at the nickname. Duo looked over to Heero. "Do you want to go now? Relena, do you mind? Heero said he had something he needed to show me."

Relena looked over to Heero with something close to suspicion for a short moment. Then she sighed. "Yes, I understand. Go ahead. I'll wait here for you, and then we can head out. I'll let the others know," she said before Duo could do more than open his mouth. She waved him away. "Have fun."

The walk to the galley would have been short if it weren't for the glaring silence between the two of them. They passed the bedrooms and, just before reaching the cargo bay, stopped and turned right, into the hold. Inside sat Wing and Sandrock, side by side. Duo stopped for a moment and just looked at the two of them. Sandrock, its broad shoulders and scimitars. And Wing, its tall, white frame and the wings he distinctly remembered giving his Heero a hard time about. He stepped toward it. "It's just as gorgeous as the one from my world."

Heero looked at him for a moment. Silently, of course, because why talk when you can just stare awkwardly? Thank everything the man started moving toward the machine before Duo opened his mouth and word vomited all over the place. Because it wouldn't have been pretty.

The hush of the opening cockpit sent something springing inside of him. He looked up to that opening recess, saw the winch lower. Heero's hand, reaching for it, caught his gaze like a trap. He watched Heero put his foot in the cable and felt his breath leave him. The look Heero gave Wing as he ascended... it was like a man coming home. As if giving a companionable look to a long friend. Duo's heart ached for it. It was another look he'd never seen on his Heero. It made him – it made him want to go with him. He would talk to Wing like a loon if it meant getting to see more of that look.

He clenched his eyes shut. This wasn't... this wasn't his Heero! This was someone else! So why was he...? How could he even think like this? He gritted his teeth.

"Oi."

Duo looked up. Just a couple of feet above the ground, Heero had stopped the winch cable, waiting for Duo to join him. He blinked at it. Heero – his Heero – couldn't really stand someone close to him. It had taken Duo a very long time to get Heero to accept his proximity, an occasional touch, or even a sudden greeting. Let alone something this personal. Duo stared from Heero to the winch and back again.

But no matter how similar to his Heero this man might sometimes be, he wasn't him. No more assumptions, Duo, he told himself, even though he would likely make a million more before the day was out.

He reached out for the winch, only for Heero to grab his hand. It... it sparked. There was no actual spark, like from a static discharge. But there was most certainly, most definitely, indisputably a spark. Oh, gods. He was done. It was too late, wasn't it? He couldn't go back to thinking this man was even more unapproachable than the one he'd first met in his dimension. Those strong fingers wrapped around his and pulled him up. He was forced to put his foot on top of Heero's in order to have enough of a hold to not swing in a breeze. It left them tenderly close, a hair's breath apart from one another's lips. Duo could feel his damn heartbeat pounding in his throat. Heero watched him as he struggled to get himself under control, their chests and legs touching as Heero once more got the winch moving. The slight sway of the cable nearly brought their lips together. Duo was so hot he had to gasp for air.

The winch took forever. Duo felt the warmth of Heero's heat all over him, even when they weren't touching. When they finally reached the cockpit, he was hard as a freaking rock and struggling not to fall into some sort of violent orgy fit. Heero, of course, just slid his foot free from beneath Duo's and gathered himself into the cockpit.

And once Duo saw the actual inside of the machine, he was distracted enough to not need to cup his damned cock.

It was different! Completely different. Duo leaned in as Heero settled down inside the – it looked almost like a movable bed, the type where you could bend different parts to suit your comfort. Only it was on its side, and was made out of the same leather seating Deatchscythe had sported. When Heero sat within, it was almost as if he was standing. As soon as he took his seat, Wing woke up. Literally. Duo watched him, and he pressed no buttons, turned no dials, flipped no switches. And yet Wing's engines whirred and his sensors lit up and Zero flared like a star in front of Heero's chest. The seat – if it could even be called a seat – moved, adjusting to form around Herero's body.

"Holy fucking shit," he breathed, and watched Wing awaken as if from a slumber.

Heero was cushioned against the seat, parts of the leather cracking apart to reveal padded joints, all of which matched to Heero's own. Something small, thin metal and wires, attached to the sides of Heero's head, for just an instant, before falling back into the seat again.

And when Wing finished waking up, Duo heard a soft, deep voice murmur, "who is this?"

Heero's gaze swept over Duo, catching on his dropped jaw and wide eyes and the quiver in his entire body. "This is Duo Maxwell, also known as Junior. He is a Gundam pilot from another dimension."

Heero. Was talking to Wing. And Wing... Wing was responding! Like a person! Duo may have squealed. "Oh, my god! Do all the suits do this? Can all of you talk? Can 'Scythe?" Duo's giddiness died only slightly as he remembered this Deathscythe wasn't _his_ Deathscythe. And the poor guy was hurting at the moment. Well, not for much longer. Howard was with him, and Duo could go help him later.

But still! By the gods! Talking Gundams!

He may have squealed again. It was all right. It still sounded manly. Ish.

Wing moved just slightly, as if stretching stiff muscles. Duo easily balanced himself at the change, but Heero clenched his fists. Wing sighed. "Of course," he said, as if he could hear Heero's thoughts or something. Then, "what do you need of me?"

"No fighting for now," Heero said, pulling up a keyboard and clacking away at it. The sound mellowed Duo out faster than anything else could have. "I just need access to the files I recently gave you."

"You will want me absent from this conversation, then," the voice grumbled. It wasn't coming from Wing's face, and certainly not from where his mouth might have been. Instead it came from the cockpit itself. Around where the Zero interface sat, actually, and Duo's excitement twinged down again as he considered the implications of that. He'd been told that Zero was a different beast altogether in this dimension, but he still didn't trust it.

"Yes," Heero said.

"Sorry," Duo said, trying to lighten the blow Heero's bluntness could achieve.

"I will stand watch," Wing said, and then quieted. Its engines, however, continued to hum, and Duo imagined that, though Wing may not participate in the discussion to come, that would certainly not stop it from listening in.

That didn't stop him, of course. He bounced his way closer to the cockpit and squeaked, "it talks!" as if Heero hadn't _just_ been conversing with the thing.

"I take it they don't in your dimension." Heero still clacked at something, probably decrypting everything. Duo didn't bother looking; he wouldn't catch half of what Heero was doing before the man would catch him in the act and likely rain some new version of hell down upon his head.

"Nope! Not at all. And – Zero. It's safe, right?" He moved to take a look at it, and sure enough, there was the infamous warning glare.

"Of course." He hesitated. Then, "you said you fought your war five years early?"

Duo nodded. "Yup."

Heero's fingers slowed for a second before picking up their pace. "Then it's reasonable to assume the doctors did not have the time necessary to perfect their work."

"True," Duo said. "Just a few months after we landed on Earth, they made Wufei and me upgraded suits, since our old ones... got destroyed." He cleared his throat; the memory of it still stung sharp. Heero's gaze flickered up to him, then back down again. "I guess four more years would have gotten them something even better."

Still! To think that "even better" could amount to _this!_ It seemed like the Gundams had, at the very least, a VI interface. That could help to explain how Zero was no longer psychotically digging into the pilot's mind – it now had a feed through which to sieve its messages. And the Gundam seemed in tune with Heero's body; when he stiffened, the defense flashers waved on. When he twitched, the Gundam twitched, too, until Heero said, "Reflex sync off."

Reflex sync! How brilliant was that! Instead of seeing something and categorizing when and how to move your hands, your body, leaning in an almost standing position, would work for you. That tiny millisecond he'd trained his ass off to hone would be gone altogether! He wanted to get in there so badly. He wanted to see Deathscythe. Would Deathscythe even recognize him? Would the machine _want_ Duo inside it?

 _That_ explained why no one was that concerned about the Gundams! If it was linked neurologically to its pilot and its pilot alone, theft would be less than useless! The thing wouldn't even power on! And watching Heero work, he was positive that was the case. The suit hadn't waited for any passcode or voice verification or anything; it had likely just checked whoever had entered, and double-checked the data once on with that weird brain scan thing. To see if Heero was still alive? To see if his mind was still his own? Whatever the case, Heero had passed the test. And Duo doubted anyone else would.

"Here." Heero pulled up some sort of monitor. A holographic one. (Duo managed to contain his squeal this time. Barely.) It looked like nothing but a bunch of low-res pixels until Heero tapped something and swung it around.

Duo barely caught the squiggles that represented the name of the folder; he thought the squiggles might have been Japanese, but they just as likely could have been Mandarin or something; Duo didn't know them all that well. Then the folder opened up and... played some video recordings.

The first one's name flashed on the screen. "Jester." it was a video of Duo. His hair was all over the place in his braid; he'd likely just come out of a fight. Heero stood up, momentarily blocking the feed, but Duo could still see one of his arms flailing randomly in the background. His smile was a mile wide. His eyes tracked Heero, then darted to the door behind them, then back. Duo didn't even recognize the place; it looked like one of the dime a dozen safehouses they'd visited. He and Heero weren't often in the same one at the same time, but they might meet up for a day or two before heading on their way. This must have been one of those times; Duo seemed to be packing in the short instances between arm dancing.

Heero came up to Duo's side and grabbed his arm. Just like that, and suddenly Duo remembered exactly what moment this was. In the clip, he froze for a short instant before gesticulating even more wildly than before. The tip of his braid twitched back and forth with each motion he made. But Heero didn't let go. Instead, he pushed Duo gently in the chest – and Duo bent over with a loud "whoof." Duo knew it couldn't be seen in the video any more than it could be in real life. But this was Heero they were talking about, and there was no way he hadn't realized what Duo's reaction meant: two of his ribs were broken. He'd completed his assignment, but it had been harder than originally anticipated. The fortifications had been heavy enough that the sneak-assassination he'd been ordered to complete hadn't been in the cards. He'd had to forego stealth, and had also forgone his health in the process.

Heero bent over him, saying something so low the camera couldn't catch it. Then he plucked a shirt hanging loose in Duo's grip and pointed at the chair, the command evident without words. Duo scowled and crossed his arms – quickly uncrossing them the instant Heero's back was turned and carefully touching his chest. The camera caught how carefully he breathed, how each deep breath hitched. How he winced. The video ended.

Another sprang up. Just before it took over the screen, Duo saw the name again: "Survivor." This one was readily recognizable. He was still as death on the hospital bed Heero had taken him to after he'd nearly been executed. Heero stood over him, the camera having apparently already started rolling and been summarily clipped. Duo didn't move as Heero leaned down, his weight light against the edge of the mattress, his dark gaze never wavering from Duo's face. The look in those eyes made Duo's heart skip, and the pain that came crashing through him nearly took his breath away. That Heero, the one who had looked at him as if Duo was some supernova going off before his eyes, was dead. Dead, and Duo had never known the man had looked at him like this.

On the screen, Heero reached out a hand, and just then, Duo moved. Heero snatched his hand back, his gaze shuttering closed, into a look Duo more readily recognized. Duo's eyes fluttered. His fingers twitched. Heero's lips trembled; Duo heard the light sound of Heero's voice, though he couldn't quite make out the words. In the bed, his prone form twitched, turning his head slightly in Heero's direction. Heero brushed a strand of hair from Duo's face, then turned on his heel and left. Duo remembered waking to a doctor by his side and Heero standing with crossed arms in the corner of the room, watching over the proceedings, ensuring Duo's safety.

And then that video ended, only to flash to another. "Soldier." Duo sat on his bed in the dorm room they'd once shared. Duo remembered that being shortly after they met. He couldn't believe his Heero had movies of him from so early in their acquaintance. But there it was, Duo in his jeans and t-shirt, having likely just come back from hanging out with other students, acting like he understood their high-class woes. Heero clacked away at his laptop, but the camera, and likely the computer it was attached to, were at an angle to keep all but a stray lock of hair out of the camera's view. And Heero quickly moved the lock of hair, his callused fingers, for a moment, fuzzy in the frame.

Duo was cleaning his gun. His gaze was glued to the weapon, the pieces neatly piled on top of the towel before him. His feet sat crossed on the bed, his back arched over his work. For once, he wasn't smiling; the frown on his face was slight, but likely noticeable to any who thought they knew him. He checked the barrel, cleaned it one last time, and turned to the magazine, putting the barrel in its place by the trigger.

The entire video went on in that vein; Duo switched eventually to the trigger, testing it once, then twice, three times, frowning slightly at the speed of the piston's reaction time. He started pulling apart the individual springs and parts. Heero recorded it all, how Duo's brows furrowed when the trigger still wouldn't set right, how his tongue stuck out as he tweaked the spring himself. The triumphant, almost sadistic grin that flashed across his face when he finally got the thing working right again.

"Brother." Him and Quatre, speaking in low tones, both of them trying to cover up their laughter as Duo pointed to Heero and made dopey faces. Trowa coming up beside them and smacking Duo in the back of the head.

"Builder." Duo arguing with the Sweepers, pointing a wrench at them as he explained, very loudly, that Deathscythe didn't like size 5 lug nuts, and that Deathscythe was a man of good taste, and they would just have to deal with it. He then proceeded to show them how to do it right, gasping loudly and covering his mouth, widening his eyes as much as possible as he said, "would you look at that! It worked!"

"Protector." Duo recognized the mobile suit hangar bay on-board the Peacemillion. Hilde stood wounded as hell in front of him, head low, as Duo ordered her the hell back to her room. "You've done enough!" Duo said. "Hell, you may have saved all of us. Now I need you to go the hell get some rest before I end up having to say good-bye. Got it?" And Hilde nodded slowly and smiled up at him.

"Prankster." This one was little more than Duo cackling madly and running past the room the camera was stationed in as Wufei hollered and stormed after him, brandishing a well griffiti'd bamboo sword.

"Scholar." Duo in his boxers, once more in the dorm room, a book held in one hand, thumb and pinky holding the thing open as he pored over subjects he'd never had to know before. The book, he saw, was on the history of art. Duo didn't remember much other than that there used to be a lot of statues of fat women and penises.

"Lover." Duo entering the room to speak of Relena's kidnapping, coming up to stand right behind him and look over Heero's notes. Heero looking over and up, taking in Duo's profile as he read, that look flickering into those eyes again. How had Duo missed it? In the video, he looked down just as Heero was shuttering it off once more, an easy smile on his own face. The look shared between them then was something like the world holding its breath; it was a moment of teetering on an edge, the drop inevitable. And it had happened, shortly after they'd finished up with that uprising. And shortly before the next, in which everyone but Duo had died.

Duo closed his eyes as the videos kept rolling, until finally Heero stopped them. The hold wasn't silent, of course; men moved around below, keeping a safe distance from the awakened Gundam. Tools banged. Metal banged. Doors banged.

Duo felt the air around him pressing in, heard its soft currents around his skin. It rang with a quietude that shook him. He feared opening his eyes and facing it. Facing those memories, those people. Those ghosts.

When he did manage to open his eyes, it was to see Heero staring at him. And that assessing look, that appraising stare, set off such a riot of feelings in him he didn't even know where to start. His mind and body both blanked.

He hadn't told this Heero about his relationship with the other one, had he? At first to keep his head on his shoulders, but then... probably because it didn't really matter? Did it? That Heero was dead. He couldn't be brought back. Not of them could. Those times, those memories – that was all they were.

"H-How did you find this?" His voice shook. His hands, when he reached out as if to take the videos from Heero, shook. It would be weak to admit he'd searched for things like this, wouldn't it? To admit he'd tried, for several days, to find even the slightest thing that linked him to those he'd lost. And when he hadn't found anything, it would be even weaker to say he'd fallen into a second despair, as he realized he had nothing of them, nothing but thoughts and memories, just like everyone else, only he had nothing to carry with him of them, nothing to carry the weight of them or take them forward into the future. Nothing to keep them _real_ and _tangible_ in this world.

He touched the ring on his finger. Leaned over and curled around the necklace on his neck.

"It was in blocked pieces, like the information on Sanc," he said. Of course. Duo had been looking for hidden files, but of course there's been things beyond his grasp. Every fragment likely had a different code to access it. And videos could have several different pieces to them, far more than Word documents. Duo closed his eyes and blew out a breath. And, apparently, when they were all pieced together, they all told the story of one little Duo Maxwell. Someone of no import growing up, of little import until the war, and of utmost importance to the one man who had loved him enough to encode little pieces of him into his computer. Into his lifeblood.

Those looks. That face. Duo clenched his eyes shut. They'd been moving forward into a relationship, but he hadn't known how very much Heero had loved him. Had loved him for quite some time, if those videos were any indication.

Oh, gods. How much time had he wasted in ignorance?

"You still carry him," Heero said, and Duo's head snapped back up. That's right. He was showing his misery to Heero. What would the man think of it? His face was carefully blank. Totally impassive. Which meant, if he was anything like the Heero he hadn't known nearly as well as he'd thought, he was deliberately putting that mask on in front of him. Hiding whatever he truly felt.

Duo clenched his eyes shut. He couldn't... he didn't think he could do this. "Yes," he whispered. Because he had little left to lose, he pulled his necklace from beneath his shirt. "I carry all of them." His hair. His braid. His cross. His rings. He carried as many as he could, and still it wasn't enough. He'd thought having something of them with him made the load he carried a little lighter, placed the burden on the things instead of on his shoulders. But he was wrong. All they did was make the weight tangible. Something others could see, instead of just something he alone knew.

He looked down at the ring on his finger, the shiny silver "1" etched into its face. He sucked in a long, deep breath. "Yes," he said. "I carry them." He dropped his hand and looked back at Heero. The man's face was as smooth as marble. "What..." He had to take a second to make sure his voice didn't crack again. "What was the point of showing me that?"

Although he could guess. This would be when Heero warned Duo he was not the other him, and to not look at him like that. The way Duo was starting to look at him. It was unhealthy. He knew that. Like falling in love with the reflection in the Mirror of Erised.

"You brought us all together to recreate that." Heero nodded toward the screen, even as it faded away.

It was not what Duo had expected, but, of course, trying to expect anything, with any Heero, was likely an exercise in futility. He opened his mouth, ready to agree. But then he stopped. Because it wouldn't have been true. He looked down at Wing's open cockpit, at the metal beneath his feet, and quirked a small grin. "I hadn't expected to live long enough to even see it," he said, admitting something he hadn't even to the other him. "I'd thought i'd be lucky to find you all before I died, and if I did, to be dead by the time you all decided to so much as accept one another's existences. All I thought was, if those in my dimension had managed to get along, even with our personalities being so diverse, that you all could, too. I wanted that. For the other me. For all of you, who probably didn't like being alone half as much as you pretended you did." He shrugged. "I want to say it was for me. For that. To bring that back. But that's not possible, is it?" He slumped down. The cross, the rings, all of them jangled slightly on their thick chain. "They're dead. They're not coming back. None of it is."

Heero was silent, watching over Duo's misery with that distant, impassive face. Duo tried to get himself under control. There had never been time in his life for grief. Grief make vulnerability, and vulnerability meant death. Yeah, so another kid failed to wake up in the morning. Yeah, so another kid died to the wounds from a market beating or a rape in an alleyway. There was still food to steal, hidey-holes to find. No time for a good cry.

And men didn't cry, anyways.

"I see," Heero said. His voice sounded... different, just then, but his face was still completely empty. Duo gave up on understanding him. It wasn't worth trying to figure out what was the same and what was different. And right then, he was far too tired.

And then Heero leaned forward, standing more firmly on the weird chair in that cockpit, and said, "that man was not me. But I can see things in him that are me."

Duo shrugged. "Me, too?"

"I wanted to see if I would accept you the way this other Heero accepted you. That is why I am following you to your world."

Duo made some strangled sound and closed his eyes again. The metal of the Gundam was cool against his backside. "I... okay?"

Heero nodded and moved to get out of the cockpit. Duo scooted out of his way on instinct, his mind still reeling. Heero was going with him through the portal because he wanted to... what? Follow up on Duo's words? See his world for himself? Because he wanted to see what Duo was made of, maybe?

He didn't understand. And he hated how his body reacted to Heero moving into his space. Wing shut down around them, leaving the air empty. Duo heard movement down below them, the sounds of men shouting orders and the unmistakable sound of mobile suits being moved. Preparing to lay siege within Sanc's walls. But in the space between them, the air was completely still.

"One more thing."

Duo looked up.

Heero stood over him, his hips level with Duo's head. Of course Duo flushed despite himself, his eyes raking over the thick muscles of Heero's thighs before catching on the bulge in the middle. He gulped. Oh, fuck. There was no way Heero hadn't seen that. And when he pulled his gaze from those hips and traveled it up Heero's long torso to his face, he found Heero still staring impassively at him. He shot to his feet. "Uh..."

And even if he gained the height the other him eventually had, Heero still had a few good inches on him at the moment. So when Heero touched his chin, pointing it slightly up, all it did was force Duo's eyes on him. Then Heero leaned down.

Duo's breath caught in his throat.

And then Heero stopped.

He didn't pull away. He didn't lean closer. He just kept his face, his lips, a scant inch from Duo's. He let go of Duo's chin, not that it did anything, since Duo had frozen his entire body to keep from... from moving. Reacting. Oh, gods, holy shit. Heero's warmth was along him all over again, those deep blue eyes laser focused on his own. On _him_. And he didn't move.

Duo was on fire. And he was also, maybe, just a tiny bit terrified.

He wanted to lean forward, not back.

He wanted to kiss Heero.


	14. Meeting Deathscythe

Duo walked in a daze.

They hadn't even done anything. The moment Duo had realized that the things he'd been feeling were real, whether he liked them or not, Heero had just pulled away and slipped onto the winch, motioning Duo over as if they hadn't just tested the bounds of personal space to the breaking point. And that was literally how Heero acted. As if nothing had happened at all.

It left Duo winding aimlessly back and forth between stark terror and utter confusion.

The mobile suit that had left had been Quatre's, and Duo could only assume they were heading out to grab Heavyarms before heading to Sanc, both because they'd left before the others and because Quatre was feeling guilty, so he would head out with Trowa to help him. In return, the Maguanacs would never let him leave alone with a potential danger to his life. So they would bring Sandrock, and they would follow, though at a distance, because Quatre wouldn't want Trowa to feel threatened.

The two of them would dance around each other for a little while, Duo predicted, before hashing things out. The Maguanacs would take a bit longer. A while longer. Eh, they'd figure it out.

Duo, on the other hand, might just drift for a very, very long time.

Heero knew. He probably didn't get it, just like Duo didn't get it. At every turn, he saw things that were similar to his Heero. But at the same time, there was such a glaring bit of evidence that this man was someone completely different. Yet despite those differences, he was falling for the same man all over again? How? Why?

This wasn't his Heero! What the hell was he doing?

Undoubtedly the other Heero, this dimension's Heero, thought he was falling in love with his old Heero all over again, that he was just pretending this Heero was _that_ Heero...

Argh! It sounded confusing even in his head!

He couldn't want to kiss this Heero. All he knew about him was how... how closed off he was. And secretive. And angry. And thoughtful. And honest, and careful. How he was willing to take a chance simply because he was shown a new way.

Duo clenched his eyes shut. He didn't want this. This... controversy, in his own head. He'd already fallen in love with one Heero. Wasn't it an insult to both to become interested in another?

Relena caught up with him as he drifted past the galley. She stood alone with Sally; when Duo tilted his head, Sally shrugged and said, "Nataku."

Duo nodded. Right. Of course they would all head out to secure their Gundams. Senior and Hilde would be getting set up in the medical ward, which was probably the last door in the line of private quarters. Everyone was getting ready for the final battle. Duo needed to keep his head in the game, too. "Okay. So it's lady time or something?"

Relena rolled her eyes. "Yes, I was just about to ask her to braid my hair like hers." She tugged on Duo's arm, even though it was completely unnecessary. "So? What did the two of you talk about?"

Duo blinked. "Uh. He had – he had videos. From my dimension, that he managed to save. From the computer. They..." He shook his head. "They were still in good condition. Surprising, that with everything lost from that hard drive, those were the things that survived."

He wanted them. Suddenly, viscerally, he wanted them.

"Oh. I'm so sorry, Duo. Did you watch them?"

Duo nodded. He didn't tell her how Heero had nearly forced him to watch, or how he hadn't been able to look away, anyway. He didn't tell her how he'd seen all the people he loved, like a list showing exactly what he'd lost. Piece by piece, tearing down the barriers he'd built as he'd lost one after the other. Like someone took a dumptruck and just dropped every memory onto the top of his head. And then squiggled it around a bit by showing him a new possibility, a new relationship, kindling right in front of him.

Relena folded him into a hug. No words said, no questions asked. He hadn't realized how badly he'd needed it until he wrapped his own arms around the girl's shoulders and squeezed.

Somehow, it only just then dawned on him that she was older than him. What the fuck.

"So old age really does bring wisdom, huh?" he murmured. She pinched his side. "Ow! Hey!"

"Shouldn't you know better than to call a woman old?" Relena swished her hair, yet when she pulled back, she did so slowly, gauging Duo's reaction to her retreat. Duo pulled his hands away and grinned.

"I don't even get how it's an insult. You _are_ old. The problem is whether you went gracefully or not."

"I am not old!" But she laughed as she swatted him, so he took it as a victory. "Jerk."

"Senior's here," Sally said, interjecting in what may have been the only pause in the growing childishness of their interaction. "Do you wish to see him before you go?"

Duo nodded. "Yes."

Duo let Sally lead him and Relena down past the galley and into the last crevice of the ship, around a short turn that led to the last bedroom and the medical room. They were both tiny; Duo hoped it had been given to Trowa, since the two girls or Wufei and Sally would be cramped as hell in the space. The medical ward was hardly large enough to fit even just the bed and supplies, let alone anyone trying to cram their way in. And with Hilde practically pitching a tent by Senior's side, Duo's entrance meant inching past the entryway. Sally and Relena were forced to stay behind simply due to lack of space.

Hilde looked up and watched as he stared at Senior. He was asleep again. His chest slowly rose and fell, and it seemed his color was better. But his eyelids didn't flicker and his hands didn't move, even as someone entered such a cramped space to stand so closely to him.

"They had to give him more painkillers after the trip here," Hilde said, explaining for him before he had to ask. "He's sleeping it off now. He'll wake up in a few hours, the doctor said." And Hilde nodded toward the door where Sally stood. Duo smiled at the idea of Sally taking over Senior's care. Hilde cleared her throat. "He said..." She shifted in her seat. "He said to, if it was possible, to take Deathscythe."

Duo stiffened. "That – is that even something I can do?" He looked down and rubbed the back of his head. He didn't know if it was right to even consider taking Deathscythe out, no matter how much his heart skipped at just the thought.

"He can't..." Hilde's hands clenched in the sheets. "He can't pilot him anymore. Not..." She looked toward his leg. It was still nothing more than a stump. It would be a while, probably, until a prosthetic was found, fitted, and hooked up. Until then, Senior would be using crutches. "Not now," she said. They both neglected mentioning the actual reason why. "But he said Deathscythe should still see battle, even if he... couldn't."

Duo closed his eyes. This wasn't something he was ready for. It was like putting down roots. Being relied on so much meant acknowledging the place he'd cemented here.

This wasn't his battle. It wasn't his group. It wasn't his world. Yet nonetheless, he was making it his home. Wasn't it a mistake? To make this place his? To have everything circling around him? Relena, the pilots. Deathscythe. _Heero_. He gritted his teeth. "I... when he wakes up. Tell him thank you. And... let him know. Heero and I are going to be checking something. If it's what we think it is, then I'll be heading back to my dimension."

She stiffened.

"Heero's coming with me. To check out my dimension, maybe. But... we'll be coming back. Both of us. I think."

"Be careful," she said, her face twisting into something he didn't understand. It wasn't a look he'd ever seen on his Hilde, but it did look something like hesitance. Hesitance and guilt.

He couldn't promise it. The idea of going back to his dimension. Duo had thought to just go himself. To close the gate, to make sure no one else could go through. If Heero went with him, would he be able to destroy it, or would he have to find another way? He wouldn't let a second Heero fall in his universe.

It left him with... with too many things to think about, really. So, for the moment, he just wouldn't. "Yeah. I gotcha."

He turned and left the room. No point in telling her he most likely _wouldn't_ be coming back, because he owed an obligation to his world, and because – well, because they would have to destroy the portal on his side, and how could they do that and go through it, too? It was like that old adage about cakes. Either you had it or you ate it. There wasn't an in-between.

But what did it mean that Heero intended to join him? What exactly was Heero planning?

If nothing else, Heero had to know the dangers. The chance of not returning. The chance of bumping into White Fang in Sanc. The chance of something going horribly wrong.

Unlike Relena, who didn't seem too concerned; in fact, when Duo asked if she could stay behind them, in the vault, with Sally, she said they'd already decided such, and that Howard would stay with Senior, too. She gave him a grin and said, "finish this, already." Like she was finally starting to accept that they had this in the bag. Which, hopefully, they did.

Sloan was such a minor nuisance that, so long as they kept him away from Relena, he really wasn't going to be too much of a threat. Especially not with all of the Gundam pilots – save Senior, but apparently Duo was going to be his fill-in or something? – there to stop him. Duo waved himself away from Relena and Sally and went back to the suit hangar. Heero was gone; Duo had heard him go a bit ago. It was just him left and waiting to go.

Howard came up to him, leaving the Sweepers behind with a short wave as he approached. Duo's gaze fell on Deathscythe; Howard had worked fast to fix up the leg as quickly as possible, but Duo knew it wasn't complete. It still needed a bit more. But they had no time, and really, Duo and Deathscythe had gone out in worse condition and kicked ass. They could do it again.

"Hey, Howard."

Howard nodded toward Deathscythe as soon as he approached. "You've been told, I'm guessing, judging by that look on your face." Duo just shrugged in answer. "Right. The cockpit's clean, the hole's filled. Just don't expect to be busting out your best moves with that leg."

Duo didn't even quite know what his 'best moves' might be anymore. "You understand the rigging of that thing?" Duo asked, gesturing toward Deathscythe as if Howard would know exactly what he was talking about.

"The Zero system?" Howard huffed. "When I worked on it, the thing was a loaded gun in a child's hands. It couldn't be controlled. It was a monster that tore apart a man's soul. Now – I may be able to figure out how it works, but it would mean killing one of these suits." The man shook his head. "And really, I think it's better that no one knows how to make them anymore. Can't get burned if we don't throw our hands into the fire."

Duo nodded, almost relieved to hear that Howard knew the Zero system as he had. It made him think that maybe, just maybe, the thing wasn't nearly as psychotically destructive as what he'd known. That maybe it really had been upgraded into something better. And Howard was right – the less people actually understood the trappings of the things, the less who would try to build their own and start a new war. "I didn't want to know myself," Duo said. "I just knew the system as that gun in kid's hands thing. Heero and Quatre piloted it like that."

Howard's brow dipped low. "They did? Repeatedly?" Duo nodded. "And they didn't have any side effects?" Howard shook his head. "Nevermind. You said things started getting bad shortly after the war?" Duo nodded. "Perhaps that wasn't enough time to see the degradation of their minds."

Duo shivered. That was something he didn't even want to hear, let alone think about. "But it's safe now?"

The man nodded. "Thing's sentient. When it enters your mind, it only does so to communicate with you, not to force itself on you or anything. The old system wanted its own consciousness, but it didn't have one yet. I think that's why it attacked the pilot's mind – it was frustrated with its limitations."

Duo shivered again. That was another thing he shouldn't think too hard about.

"Well," Howard said, "he's yours now." He looked up to that cockpit, his gaze hooded by his sunglasses.

His. Deathscythe was his now, for better or for worse. There was no way Senior would be able to pilot the thing, not if it needed the body's reactions to move properly.

Deathscythe was beautiful. Even injured still, he gleamed with a burnished fire, his dark paint concealing the size of his Buster Shield. Its shoulders still carried its cannons, though they were smaller than the ones his Deathscythe had wielded. Beyond were the wings, things he'd overlooked before because they seemed almost to be a part of the cannons; he could barely see how they would unfurl, granting only a marginal use in evasion, perhaps, but a much greater sense of terror. Which, really, was what Deathscythe was all about.

He wanted to step inside and be welcomed. He also didn't want to feel like he was stepping on Senior's ghost to do so. "We'll see if he welcomes me," he said. Again, leaving it up to someone else. But then again, nothing could be done if Deathscythe didn't accept him. He had no idea how much of his buddy was AI and how much was VI. A virtual interface wouldn't care about Duo's charms; it would only care that he didn't fulfill the role of proper pilot. An AI might be persuaded.

And, if only for this fight, he had to be allowed on-board. After Senior got his prosthetic and went through therapy, he might be able to pilot Deathscythe again. This battle, however, was Duo's. "Well, let's do this, yeah?" And he turned toward Deathscythe and started moving. "Relena and Sally – I know it's gonna be hard, but can you get them into Sanc's vault without starting a revolution?"

"Why me?" Howard asked. Ah. The voice of a man with experience.

"Because you can drop them off and leave!" Duo said with a laugh.

"Only if they don't kill me first," Howard harrumphed, but Duo thought he'd do it. And then he'd take Senior and Hilde someplace safe. Duo hoped Senior didn't wake up for any of it; he'd be pissing mad he was being protected.

Deathscythe loomed as he neared. The comforting presence was lost, replaced by the feel of distance, even dislike. It was probably all in his head – unless the Gundams were only in some sort of Sleep mode, and could hear and understand the world around them, if not engage? If so, it could be very real. The machine may actually be furious with his attempt to dupe it and take Senior's place.

The winch cable was already lowered and waiting when he arrived at Deathscythe's feet, whether for the Sweepers' restoration efforts or as some sort of attempt to manipulate Duo more easily if he needed 'encouragement.' It was more likely the latter than the former. He planted his foot in the winch and gripped it tight before pressing the small button to put it in motion. The lurch of the ground from beneath his feet put him sharply in mind of the last time he'd ridden a winch. He flushed horribly. His cock sprang to attention.

Oh, that would be _so_ embarrassing if Deathscythe found out.

He arrived at the cockpit and didn't quite know what to do. The keycode interface was waiting beside the entrance, but maybe it was a misnomer? A way to shake off pursuers? He hadn't seen Heero punch in a code, after all. No, wait. He'd used his thumbprint and such. Duo moved to the small interface and ignored the tiny buttons for the monitor. He placed his thumb over it. It scanned and chirruped.

Well. He'd wondered if his fingerprints were the same as Senior's. One mystery solved.

He stepped into the cockpit, his heart thrumming in his chest. It was like meeting the others in this dimension, a sick twist of happiness at meeting someone he'll probably like, twisted around a direct punch to the gut at the knowledge that this person didn't share anything with him.

It also felt slightly like a blind date.

Deathscythe's engine churned, his eyes flashing bright green as Duo stepped inside. He took a deep breath and turned, placing his back against the seat, his feet fitting into the steps on the bottom of the chair. It folded around him immediately. Duo was surprised by how warm and soft it felt; it also smelled very faintly of a shampoo Duo himself liked. Duo heard the whirr of the tiny metal thing that had attached itself to Heero's neck, and he twisted around to watch it for a second. It had a small needle, one Duo was happy to see was attached through some sort of mechanism and not the same one used over and over again. He leaned back, knowing this was the start of the point of no return. The needle stuck quickly, in and out, and retreated back from whence it came. (And really, Duo wanted to know _so badly_ from whence it came.)

"Who are you?"

Duo jerked. Deathscythe was talking to him! And the voice was different than Wing's. It was different! "Uh," he said. His first fucking word to Deathscythe, and _that_ was what he said.

"You are Duo Maxwell. Yet you are not him." If Deathscythe could, he would probably be tilting his head in confusion. Well, maybe he could. Maybe he would only do it if he were human. "Your DNA, your fingerprints, your bone structure. But you are too young, and... different."

"I'm from another dimension," Duo said, wondering just where and how, exactly, the Gundam had managed to catch his bone structure. Then the seat conformed a bit more snugly to his body, and he figured it was because of that. It had likely initially formed to fit Senior perfectly. "I'm Duo Maxwell from another dimension." His heart thrilled. He didn't even know if he could see this Deathscythe as different from his own; while this one was certainly upgraded, in his eyes, Deathscythe would always be Deathscythe. Like getting another, similar-looking dog to one's first, he would know if there was a difference within. There wasn't. They were, at their hearts, the same.

This, this one thing. It felt like home.

"Another dimension?" Deathscythe said. "That work is still theoretical."

Duo snorted. "Fuck, that's more than I knew when I started. It was an accident. But apparently there's an actual machine, and more, in the Sanc vault, and someone's trying to get to it. Senior – the other Duo Maxwell – he's out of commission after the last fight."

"We didn't move in time," Deathscythe said. Duo felt the machine shift slightly; not much, but enough for Duo to feel the deep rumble of the servos and the shift of balance against his place in the seat. His breath caught in his chest. "His reflexes were slow in that leg, injured from the battle in Leads during the War. His hands managed to pull back enough to keep the damage to me minimal, but not minimal enough to keep himself from greater injury." Another shift. "I do not know if protocol demands I consider you my partner or an intruder."

"Then wait off on that," Duo said. "And if you change your mind – if I do something so out of character or unacceptable you see me more as an enemy – then I give you full permission to kill me."

Deathscythe was silent for a moment. Then, "you would allow this?"

Duo snorted. "Sure. If I were to do something so out of character. Which I won't, because in this, if nothing else, Senior and I are in complete agreement." He grinned. "And you might just find me a good partner."

Deathscythe chuckled. It rumbled through the entire body of the suit, thrumming against Duo's body through the seat. "A worthy answer."

Worthy. Worthy? Like, Duo was worthy of being in this seat, with Deathscythe? Damn straight. He grinned. "Now. How do I – I mean, how does this work?"

There turned out to be controls, after all, though most were superfluous. Duo could order Deathscythe to do something, or he could clench his own muscles in reaction to something, and it would just happen. But since Duo's reactions were more for combat in his own body, with his own weapons, than with Deathscythe's, his reaction time would be lower. And so he took Deathscythe's controls, moving his arms to grip them and, oddly enough, having the seat around his arms follow him. He wondered how Deathscythe would decipher the difference between Duo manipulating the controls and Duo reacting instinctively. Oh, well. They could jump that hurdle later. For the moment, their conversation consisted of Duo once again running through the Zero system he'd known and why his knowledge of Deathscythe was different.

At least this Deathscythe seemed suitably horrified by the idea of having such a thing installed in his systems, and properly outraged when he heard someone had done just that. "The man is dead?" Deathscythe asked.

"Oh, yeah," Duo said in confirmation, even as he engaged Deathscythe's legs into moving. Deathscythe snorted and took over for Duo before he could do more than get Deathscythe two steps forward. "Whoops. Sorry. I'm used to you being a little less cooperative."

"We are one," Deathscythe said. The hangar doors opened; Deathscythe pulled up a zoom of Howard, grinning like a loon and waving to them, before Duo could pull it up or ask for it. "Do not forget that."

One. Duo's heart pounded in his chest. They were an entity, one force, moving together. Duo breathed in. The air caught in his throat. "Right," he croaked.

Preventers HQ seemed to be in a tizzy. Well, every single Gundam was heading out, moving into Sanc, and Une probably had no idea why. Not like Duo was going to be the one to inform her. Let her stew. Her reaction to it would define what kind of person she was, and thus how he would treat her in the future. For now, he had to focus on ensuring Relena would be safe.

Sally and Howard, if the man stayed with Relena, could have her back until the sun froze over, but it wouldn't mean jack unless they could ensure no one but stragglers got too close. And really, even that could be considered a failure, too.

Duo hurried out of the Preventers' hangar, wondering if Une would demand the doors be closed to try to stop him or if she would be smart enough to know he would just wreck her shit if she tried. The Maguanacs, still keeping the Preventers from Quatre's ship, backed slightly away as he moved through. Rashid was still with them; whatever Quatre had planned for them, the plan wasn't in motion yet. Most likely, they would go with Howard and Sally and Relena and ensure their safe arrival. After that, who knew? They didn't have suits anymore, not if their suits were normal, unlike the Gundams. They would have to be foot soldiers, likely to hide inside the Sanc estate in wait.

"Hey, call up maps of the estate, will you?" And Deathscythe immediately pulled up pictures of the place, along with blueprints. Duo matched them together and thought. "If Heero takes to the sky, Wufei can take an entire side himself. Nataku's reach is crazy."

In fact, since part of the estate stretched into outreaching partitions, Wufei would be best at the back. Quatre probably already had it covered, but it was best if Duo knew what he was in for. "The problem's gonna be me, really. I'm all for stealth, but this kind of combat goes against the whole purpose of Deathscythe."

"It does," Deathscythe agreed, making Duo jump despite himself. Thankfully, Deathscythe did not mimic the movement. It would have looked stupid when they were at the edge of the hangar, like Duo couldn't figure out how to actually leave. It would have been humiliating.

"Time to go," Duo said, and once again, Deathscythe moved before he could, tipping over into the air. His wings unfurled with a mechanical whirr, the pull of them shoving the suit into a sloping slide. Duo felt the adrenaline thrill through him. In a seat that seemed more like standing than sitting, the feel of falling was a tight knot in his gut, his heartbeat a racing hammer as the ground swooped closer below him. City lights blinked and whirled beneath Deathscythe's feet. Duo whooped.

Deathscythe chuckled.

"Faster!" Duo said, like he was five or something. And, amazingly, Deathscythe complied. They flew in a quick barrel roll, Deathscythe's wings curling in around itself. Duo whooped again, laughing hysterically as, for the first time in his life, he enjoyed flying without controlling every minute detail of it. He barely had to move his hands for Deathscythe to recognize that he wanted to pull up, hardly had to turn right for the suit to follow his silent request. "This is awesome!" he shouted.

He let go of the controls, only panicking for half a second before turning his gaze on Sanc and having Deathscythe do the same. Deathscythe stopped spinning and looping around and flew straight to their target. Again without prompting, the suit pulled up zoomed images of the other Gundams, sitting in front of Sanc in a cluster that meant their pilots were not inside at the moment. Duo also couldn't help but notice that Sandrock and Heavyarms were standing rather closely together for two Gundams whose owners had been locked in battle just a day or so ago.

Deathscythe went through the motions of landing as soon as Duo asked, maneuvering right where Duo leaned, his hands gripping controls he didn't even have the opportunity to use. "What's even the point of me?" he asked.

"Once battle begins, you will understand," Deathscythe said. "Are you all right for a neural link?"

Duo tilted his head. "There's more than the needle?"

"Of course."

Of course. Duo grinned a dangerous grin. "Sounds interesting. Count me in."

"Good."

And Deathscythe let Duo take over powering down. "See you in a bit," Duo said, almost whispering, as if saying goodnight instead of goodbye. He remembered his final goodbye to his Deathscythe and felt a swell of heat in his nose and throat. He couldn't imagine killing his friend if he was like this – thinking, rationalizing. _Alive_. Thank everything this universe hadn't called for the destruction of the Gundams; Duo couldn't imagine being all right with it.

He took a deep, steadying breath and opened the hatch.

Ziplining down meant the others had plenty of time to gather around him. Trowa took to the leg of Deathscythe, staying close but out of the way. Quatre was closest, of course, with a small smile on his face that Duo didn't bother trying to analyze. He had a list of things it could have meant for his old Quatre, but with this one, he needed to make the list starting from scratch.

Wufei and Heero were eying each other, some scowl marking Wufei's lips as Duo neared. "We aren't done," Wufei said, and Duo wanted to roll his eyes. Good grief, what was it this time?

"Hey," Duo said in greeting, waving to each of them in turn. Quatre and Trowa were the only ones to wave back, of course; Heero and Wufei were busy glaring at each other. (Which, by the way, Heero was definitely winning. Why did Wufei even try?)

"Hello," Quatre said, holding out the hand he'd waved with to help Duo off the cable. Duo smiled and accepted. He left Deathscythe's cockpit open. It wasn't even just that he trusted everyone here; it was that, literally, no one could pilot Deathscythe but himself. It was a security he'd never had before, and somehow solidified Deathscythe as an autonomic person even more than him speaking and thinking for himself. "We were discussing strategy. You're still considering traveling through the dimensional gate, correct?"

Duo stilled. This had become official strategy now? He looked back and forth between the other pilots. Trowa looked impassive, but Wufei seemed angry. And Heero...

Heero tilted his head. If he knew how, the bastard would likely be smirking. That was definitely the tilt that usually accompanied a smirk. Duo scowled.

"I'll take that as a yes," Quatre said. "I thought to do the same, but I can't leave this battle." And Quatre's gaze flickered to Trowa. Duo really, really wished he knew what he was missing there. It looked juicy. "I would have wanted someone to go with you." He didn't say it, but Duo could guess it: the little blond would likely have chosen Wufei. It was strategically sound; Wufei would want to ensure both Duo's safety and his return, and Heero remaining behind would have given them the proper air support. But, well, they would apparently have to make do, because Heero on a mission was probably the greatest definition of the immovable object.

"Uh, okay?" Duo turned from Heero to little Quatre – who was still an inch or so taller than him. Dammit. "It's just – I need to make sure things are – that things don't get found over there. White Fang owns everything by now. We were the last ones to try to stop it. I think the few Preventers who were left were little more than some petty resistance, and without us pilots to focus on, there's just nothing in between them and the estate. It's only a matter of time before someone finds that vault, and then the gate – I need to make sure they can't come here the way I did."

But Quatre already had his hand up, and he was nodding. "I know, Duo. Before you had even brought it up in the ship, I had thought of the same thing."

Duo frowned at that. "You did?"

"Of course. You have shown you aren't the type to flee easily; there's no other explanation but that your world was, in your eyes, beyond saving. I'm sure that, at some point down the line, a resistance will come up against White Fang that will defeat them. But it may not happen in your lifetime. And if White Fang gets a hold of the items in the vault, it may not happen for centuries, and they could easily spread to worlds like ours. Of course it should be a priority to keep that from happening. Both for our world's sake and for yours." Quatre clapped him on the shoulder. "The problem would be the attempt to get back to us again afterward. I already asked Howard to search through whatever remains of the computer you have, and some of the Maguanacs are looking for your ship in order for us to understand it better. If we do that, we may be able to equip you and Heero with the information necessary to build another one, just in case. Because I expect you to come home."

Home. The sudden shock of it was almost painful. Even worse was the sudden knot in his throat and the waterworks trying to turn on their spigots behind his eyes. He didn't think he could speak.

Thankfully, Quatre pulled a lifesaver moved and turned to the others. He even clapped his hands to get their attention faster. "All right. What we need to do is set things up as well as possible from out here. Hamad and Allu are already coordinating a few men inside, and Rashid and the others will be here with Miss Peacecraft. I need specs on all of your suits."

Every single pilot made a frowny face. Duo rolled his eyes. "I'm all stealth, man. It's gonna be hardest working with me." It figured. Quatre was the one to plan, to come up with the best strategies. But of course they only knew the bare minimum of each other still, and hardly anything about one another's suits. A couple of battles together, during which they paid more attention to the enemies than to each other, was not going to cut it. "You want frontal assault, go with Heero and Wufei. Of the two, Wufei has more reach, but Heero's got more close-up power, and he can go up. You want somebody who can tag-team and work both close up and far away, you got Trowa. And you're more, what? Close quarters, but not very heavy on the actual combat itself, right?"

Quatre nodded. Duo could already see the guy running calculations in his head. "And you said your Gundam is more inclined toward stealth?"

"There isn't 'inclination.' It's stealth. I can cloak my Gundam from all sensors. The wings give it even better hiding capabilities; there's tons of wards and barriers and traps laid in those things. As for my weapons, it's all about distance. I'm the one who kills them before they know I'm there. And once they do know I'm there, I'm still far enough away that they can't get close."

Quatre frowned. "This battle isn't suited for you."

"You know, I somehow caught that." Duo grinned. "But I can still help. I'll just need to duck low and jump back."

"You should be kept close to Wufei, then," Quatre said, and Duo watched things start clicking into place. "That would actually work quite well. In the back of the estate, there are two parts of the building that jut out farther than the rest. It creates a sort of alcove. We would need someone watching over that space, able to defend either side. You and Wufei, working together, would be able to take care of that rather well. If his reach is long, then you can take one side and him another, and you can switch back and forth in battle. Heero, the front and top would be yours." Heero tilted his head again, this time in acceptance. "I'll take the side with Duo and coordinate with him. Trowa, you'll take the side with Wufei. The two of you, together, will be able to balance out each other's reaches, and if Wufei has to come aid Duo or myself, you'll be able to pick up the slack." Quatre looked around. "Is everyone amenable to this?"

"I am," Duo said, raising his hand. "Sounds like fun."

Heero nodded. "It's sound."

Duo wondered if maybe, just maybe, Heero had just made some sort of pun.

"I agree," Wufei said, glaring hollowly at Heero from the side before giving up. He sighed from deep in his chest. "I also wish to state that I am not fully agreeing to this plan of yours, Junior." Wufei hitched a brow when Duo opened his mouth to protest the nickname. "It's dangerous enough, returning to your world, is it not? You've made mention of it before. You just barely got here. These White Fang members. They would have killed you. Is that correct?"

Duo nodded. "They did kill the others," he said, looking over to Heero. Not that saying such would deter him in the slightest; he was perhaps even more bullheaded than the Heero from Duo's universe. "But we can't just let that thing stay there, Wufei. It's dangerous."

"I don't disagree," Wufei said. "But sending you in there alone – or even with Yuy; I can't say that he is the first person I would choose to have someone's back – is perhaps the riskiest decision of all."

"Heero's good at stealth," Duo said. "I know he was trained as an assassin, or else there's no way he could do half the things he was able to years before your Operation Meteor occurred. And stealth is what we're going to need. If we get caught, we're done for. It doesn't matter if all of you come with me. It doesn't even matter if we're somehow able to bring the Gundams over with us. No amount of superior tech can save us from their numbers. Especially not with the Alliance's old weapons on their side." Plus, he expected Heero to be the only one who would face everything with the knowledge that, if worse came to worst, Duo – and he himself, though it made Duo's chest clench and twist like a mother – were expendable.

Wufei was married. Quatre was a hotshot politician. And Trowa? Well, between him and Heero, perhaps it was Heero's better stealth tactics that made him the best option. Or perhaps it was Duo's own greed, telling him that having Heero by his side always made things seem a little less impossible.

Wufei didn't have anything more to argue about on the subject without just saying he didn't want Duo to head through, which Duo thought might actually be the main argument Wufei wanted to make. It didn't even make full sense to him; they were still veritable strangers. What in the world could Wufei see in him?

"Right." Quatre clapped his hands together again, once more catching their attention. "For now, we're going to do everything we can to prevent a single man from stepping foot in this building. We have a few bombs and tripwires between us all, I'm sure, and all of us have the ability to use the building itself to make traps. So let's get that started, and just leave the path to the vault open for now so we can get Miss Peacecraft there safely." Quatre turned to Trowa. "Trowa. Would you mind keeping lookout out here? Duo, you, too. You need to be ready to move into position immediately the moment any of the Gundams pick up an enemy. You can let us know just by moving your Gundams. We'll be listening for it."

Duo nodded as Quatre, Heero, and Wufei all silently turned and stepped into the building. There was something homey about being a part of the preparations. It, more than anything else, cemented the idea of this being Duo's fight. It wasn't something he was just walking in on, or participating in. He was planning it. He was moving forward with it, starting at the start, with the others. For the first time, this battle was his from the beginning.

Trowa didn't move from Deathscythe's leg and seemed content to simply watch, arms crossed, as Duo wandered back and forth, his mind tumbling back and forth on what to think or do. Sure, he had a battle looming in front of him, but all he could feel from that was a bastard mix of the usual adrenaline rush, a feeling that twirled as one together with the new thrill of fighting alongside new teammates, including the newest and yet oldest of them all. And of course, swirling that into a cocktail was the worry and downright fear of what that "something more" with Deathscythe would entail, because all he could think was syncing his damn brain to the Zero system, and holy shit, he actually just shuddered at that thought.

"You hold a lot of faith in us," Trowa said, calling out slightly to be heard as Duo wandered closer to Deathscythe's opposite foot, "considering you don't know any of us."

Duo hummed. Trowa was probably still testing him, but really, he wasn't the type to worry about the man's motives. Trowa would do as Trowa did, and trying to figure him out was perhaps an even more impossible mystery than trying to figure out Heero. "Sure. But I already know enough about you guys. You fought in the war, same as us. You invested even more of your lives into it, since you waited another five years to even get involved. And yet you all still did everything you could. Meeting Deathscythe, I'm beginning to understand how you guys didn't reach out to one another during the war. You already had a close ally right there with you. And now, every last one of you has been helping keep the peace in this time period. Heero watched over Relena, Wufei watched over the Preventers, Quatre watched over the people and the politics, and you watching over Sloan and, likely, any other potential enemies over the years." Duo shrugged. "Whatever you guys are, or whoever, you're still good people. You're still fighting for peace. How could I not trust you when that's what we're doing here again?"

Trowa was silent. Duo supposed there wasn't much to add to that sentiment; there was only so much left to argue about when someone said something like that. Probably. Duo scratched his head. "It's nothin' noble or anything. I worked in a pack when I was a kid. You had to rely on each other when you were on the streets 'cause you weren't strong enough on your own. And when you're in the pack, you don't just give the others your trust. You take theirs. If you can't hold yourself up, then you aren't fit for the pack. If you can't hold the others up, then you aren't fit for the pack. It's as simple as that."

Trowa grunted. Then, "that I can understand."

Duo nodded. He figured Trowa could.

He heard the slight banging from inside that told him the others were hard at work. The sky outside was clear still, boringly so. No footsteps neared. Inside the house, all grew quiet. They had likely made their ways to the back rooms of the building, too far to be heard from the front. Some of Sloan's men could attempt a way inside, but getting past the other three pilots, the Maguanacs already inside, and the traps they'd already laid out would be a feat. And if they did that, then they wouldn't survive the sweep they and the Maguanacs would do once Relena was inside. There would be no point in worrying about that. That left only the sky, and any early sign of a mobile suit strike; anything less would be broken up by the Maguanacs or the Preventers before they would even reach the estate.

Without the battling or the bickering, the estate was calm. For the first time, Duo could see the remnants of what must have been a beautiful lawn, grass so green it looked fake, hedges lined up with what must have once been military precision. Now, the place held the scars of the previous battle. Dirt covered the grass in holes where mobile suits had stepped or shot. The shrubbery was likewise totaled, many pieces pulled by their roots or little more than smoking ruins. Beyond the lawn was the gate, in oddly pristine condition save for one lone area, which was flattened to the ground like a pancake.

Beyond that, the outer walls looked like a battleground still, and would for quite some time. Bodies still pockmarked the roads Duo could see; not that there were many, since the estate was freakin' huge. The sky was empty, too. But as he stared up, letting his mind wander once more, he saw tiny black spots show up from the east.

Trowa straightened off Deathscythe's leg. "Looks like it's started," he said.

Duo grinned. This is _his_ fight. "I love crashing parties." And he climbed onto the foot of the winch.


	15. Storm? More Like An Unending Drizzle

Deathscythe whirred on the same way he did before, lights flashing as soon as Duo entered, engines kicking in after it tested his DNA. Deathscythe's first words to him were, "it is strange to me, not knowing who to expect."

It made a little of Duo's enthusiasm for the fight diminish. This was his Gundam, but it was also Senior's. The idea of sharing Deathscythe rankled. Especially knowing that he wasn't the first. It was like being jealous over a boyfriend's previous love life. Which was a weird thought about a Gundam, but there it was. "Yeah, I guess it would be. Problem?"

He did everything he could to sound curious but friendly. He wasn't sure it worked, but either way, Deathscythe responded with a short, "no." Then, "are you prepared?"

"No," Duo answered right back. "So let's get this cooking before Trowa beats us to the fun."

"Trowa," the suit echoed, immediately zeroing in on Heavyarms. "That is not a name Senior knew."

"It's the last of us," Duo said, thinking back on the first battle that had happened right here and wondering about the conversation between Deathscythe and Senior. At least, if anyone else had to pilot Deathscythe before him, it was someone like – well, like himself, who loved Deathscythe inside and out. (Wow. Definitely jealous boyfriend material there.) "We found him just a bit ago. He's suspicious of our motives, but because he sees us a a potential threat to the peace."

"We are," Deathscythe said, and Duo heard a new, much closer, far more high-pitched whirring directly behind him. He turned to look. "No. Keep your eyes ahead. These need to be exact."

Oh, well that sounded very not good. And just as he thought that, barely managing to keep himself sitting in Deathscythe like normal, two somethings dug into either side of his neck, just behind his ears. He barely managed to keep himself still, his eyes popping wide as he wondered just what the hell he'd agreed to.

He didn't know what the hell it was, but it felt like screws were being drilled into him. And then a shot of something liquid, and just as Duo wondered if he'd been poisoned or something, he felt the pain around the areas dim. Something else latched around him like a gorget, circling the entirety of his neck and even his collarbones, keeping him steady. He also felt the seat around his body go a bit more weightless, and he realized it was now on a balancing act, a gyro, all the better to absorb impacts. Great. At least he didn't need to worry about the things being ripped out wrong and bleeding to death inside the cockpit. That was a plus. Probably.

And then he heard thoughts other than his own trickle down the back of his mind. Thoughts like a long, contemplative hum, and something like a spark of surprise. _Similar, but different_ , he heard, more like some intangible conclusion than actual words. And he might have, maybe, perchance, freaked out. Just a little.

More. _More_. The little bastard had used such a bland, erroneous euphemism as the word _more_ to mean a fucking _melding of the minds_. Holy crap, this was some H.P. Lovecraft level shit going on right here. Deathscythe was _in his head_.

Also, he was terrified to move his head. Or his shoulders. Or especially his neck. He even seriously contemplated controlling each breath he took.

 _These cause no permanent damage,_ he heard, and images of the things now in his neck emerged in his mind. They _were_ like screws, only they were thin, like needles, and less than a centimeter long. Enough to, say grab hold of some nerve endings and do something to them? Duo saw flashes of something about metal and electromagnetics and something something, but he'd never been good with biology and he didn't really have time to delve into it, anyway. Suffice it to say, the other pilots had apparently gone into countless battles with these horrible things inside them, and they'd managed to come out with little more than their usual surly attitudes.

"Okay," he murmured, then, when he realized he was the only one speaking aloud now, thought, _okay_. And felt like an idiot when he heard Deathscythe chuckle.

_The other spoke aloud, as well._

Well, fuckin' _yeah_ , 'cause that's what people _did_. Duo sighed. "Right. So this mental thing – this is how we fight."

Even though it was obvious, he heard a silent confirmation. Of course. If they were really supposed to work in sync, then why not just stick their brains together and go from there? It was morbid and creepy and, well, Duo could only assume painful enough that the weird liquid feel had been the damn things injecting anesthetic along with whatever linked their minds together. _(Fucking creepy!)_ So now he had Deathscythe checking everything in his anesthetized head so that they could work simultaneously. Oh, joy.

"I need my controls," Duo said. What came next was a creepy, confused jointed 'conversation' that consisted of nothing but wordless thoughts. Deathscythe was confused because, if they worked together, why would Duo need controls? And Duo's mental response, with nothing but a sort of picture of what he needed and a knowledge that he needed it, which was pretty much the mental equivalent of him saying, 'you want me to act instinctively? Then I need my controls.' Because he'd been taught how to fly Deathscythe as a machine, not as a second part of his brain. Or body. Or whatever the fuck was going on; he didn't know anymore.

Deathscythe must have understood – and how could he not, all _brain-melded_ and shit – and called up his controls. Duo held his hands around them. The feel of them was off slightly; there was no echoing thrum in them. They weren't actually hooked into anything; the power for them had been disrupted, so that, even if Duo did press anything, it wouldn't work. Weird. Why not have it work as a back-up?

And as soon as he wondered that, he got the answer: because thought to thought, waiting for action would take longer. And, in that case, Duo pressing the buttons could mangle Deathscythe's actions, which would already be to enact whatever Duo had been about to do. It would mean Deathscythe would have already begun a swing when Duo would move the controls to do so; he would be off. They would miscoordinate. It made sense, it was just... _weird_. Very, very weird.

Duo only had to think, 'we need to take off,' and already, Deathscythe was pushing power into its thrusters. Duo held the controls with a tight grip, not ready for the instant relay of thought to action. The familiar rumble of the suit, the trembling of the metal, felt at odds with the insanity going on around him. He realized, vividly, just how handicapped he would be during the fight. He'd wrongly assumed the difference in Deathscythe was little more than the talking and thinking parts; he wasn't ready for this.

Well, if he'd been hoping this bland fight could be even remotely challenging, here then was the challenge. He chuckled at the thought.

"All right, 'Scythe," he said, and tightened his hands on the controls as if to ease the suit forward. Of course, it followed his command, even though he didn't feel the resistance in the controls at all. "Let's make it happen."

The biggest problem was that Relena still wasn't there. They had no idea where she was. And if Duo went looking for her, then he would only instigate the enemy doing the same. One lucky shot could take her out of the picture.

And just when he thought that, Deathscythe's sensors picked up another grayish-black spot, which it immediately called up on the side monitor – Howard's ship. They must have moved over to it, just in case Quatre's was recognized and targeted. Not like any ship wouldn't be targeted in the middle of a battle. "Trowa! Give me cover fire while I get Relena to safety!"

He turned without waiting, not leaving much of an option for the man, just in case Trowa wanted to play hardass and try to get her himself. It would be better if Trowa laid cover fire; the man had a much larger arsenal and much greater reach than Duo, and Duo could use the ship to help hide the extent of his weapons until someone got near. Also, as someone created for stealth, frontal assaults should automatically be left for someone else.

Even though he hadn't been _created_ for stealth, Deathscythe had. He'd _learned_ to be stealthy. But picking that apart would have to come later.

On thought alone, Deathscythe unfolded its wings and draped them over its body, dropping itself from the larger ship's sensors. The ship would have to keep him in visual now. Not hard – until Trowa opened fire. Duo and Deathscythe both checked the trajectories of Trowa's projectiles. Only a slight switch in calculations was necessary to avoid them, and Duo found Deathscythe making those adjustments without him.

A.I's. Weird.

Howard's ship must have seen the approaching enemy, because it banked hard. Duo only began to ask Deathscythe for a link to their ship when the radio signal burst on. Duo jumped slightly at it, making the gyro swing slightly. "Howard," he said, then cleared his throat. "Or Sally, or whomever?"

"Duo?"

It was Relena. Duo closed his eyes. "Relena. Why are you the one answering?"

"Because Howard's busy turning the ship and Sally's cursing up a storm," she said. He could _hear_ the blush on the woman's cheeks.

"Great. Tell them to stop being idiots and get behind me."

Duo shot toward the ship, his first concern being getting them behind him so he could shield their approach. Howard's ship wasn't made for combat; it was slow to turn, slow to advance – slow in every way. It was a transporter, not a fighter. Getting to them was actually going to be the easy part.

Trowa, on his end, was thorough. He continued firing even as Duo flew up, catching the enemy's attention by making it seem like Heavyarms had flight capabilities. It gave him the last few seconds he needed to stand between Relena and the oncoming ship. And all he had to do was tell Deathscythe that their number one priority was keeping Howard's ship from getting hit, and Deathscythe automatically adjusted to keep her safely behind him. Projections and logistics flashed through his mind, telling him what could and could not be done while maintaining such a position.

He winged it.

The enemy fired at him, and for a short second, he diverted his own attack to protect Relena and himself with the Buster shield. All he had to do was think about his action, his hands flying over the controls even as Deathscythe's arm took position, over two seconds faster than if he'd done it himself. Deathscythe didn't take a single hit; he and it checked the trajectory of every bullet before it hit. While he knew the calculations, he could feel them, in his mind, running faster than he'd ever been able to do alone before. The shield caught every blow, the trajectory of each bullet flying through his head faster than he should be able to process. He dared think about counterattack, and suddenly he could see avenues of movement, ways to continue blocking the assault while he pulled out his scythe. He did, his arm moving for the weapon before he consciously considered it – before he, with a strange jolt that seemed to come from the furthest reaches of his thoughts, realized that it wasn't his arm. But it was. His fingers gripped the scythe, the digits working in terms of pressure and force rather than feel and touch, and he turned on the beam of his weapon even as he flew forward.

The plane dropped out two Leos and a battered Aries. Nothing more than pittance. Distraction? Did they have more? He wasn't Heero; he couldn't do mental calculations based on size and speed; the best he could do was take care of the enemies before they got to Relena.

The Leos could fall for the moment; they didn't have anything more than a pack capable of getting them safely to the ground. The Aries put up an immediate assault. For below, he heard more of Heavyarms' gunfire; one Leo didn't even make it dirtside before falling to the man's weapons. Duo concentrated on the Aries. He still needed his Buster rifle, and his suit was not made for long-range combat. He would have to get in close. But Howard's ship was still descending, pulling further and further away from the battle. If he got too far away, the ship would become an open target.

Once more, information flew through his mind that shouldn't have been there. He didn't check down below, yet somehow he could tell the others were getting into their own Gundams. It took a few moments to realize Deathscythe's sensors had picked up the information, and Deathscythe in turn had relayed the information to him. It zoomed in on them, calculated how long it would take them to join the assault, and still helped him shield the next attack.

Duo fell back, relying on the information Deathscythe sent. By the time the Aries had time to wrap around the ship, the others will have taken to flight. "Time to take the hits," he said, and deliberately took a couple of bullets. As intended, the enemy turned their attention to him.

The Aries bothered to fire on him only in preparation for some sort of retaliation; when the pilot saw none was forthcoming, he focused on his path to Howard's ship. Duo let him go, Deathscythe showing him how Heero's Wing booted up, how Sandrock's eyes glowed. They were coming.

Duo stuck with blocking the incoming fire from the enemy ship, stuck using only his Vulcans as his lone offense. They did little to the ship, though, with Deathscythe's help, he managed to get a single gun destroyed.

_We're taking damage._

He knew they were taking damage; he could _feel_ himself taking the damage. The bullets that ricocheted off Deathscythe's chest and legs burst like bruises over his skin. Linked as they were, Deathscythe's pain was his pain. Suddenly he understood, viscerally, what had happened to Senior. So far, he'd been able to limit the damage to minor dings and scratches. And even as he waited, pulling back with the ship, he saw Heero take to the skies.

Wing was somehow even more beautiful than in his dimension. Maybe it was the link between Heero and the suit, something he didn't have before, that made their movements even more fluid. Maybe it was because, even in the simplest of movements, somehow he could see Heero in every single one of them. Both his Heero and this Heero, which gave him dual pangs of breathlessness and loss, a pain that left him scrunching in on himself slightly. Deathscythe echoed the movement, and suddenly there was a voice over his comm unit. "Status."

The word made the air burst from his lungs. He pulled up his shield and called a quick, "fine," to Heero's question. Then, "Qat, what do you need from me?"

"Let Yuy take out the Aries ship first," Wufei said, answering for Quatre. The man was already engaging one of Trowa's land enemies, giving the man the opportunity to give Duo a bit more ground support. "Once he's finished, get back down here. You're perhaps the worst person to be up in the air alone."

Normally, he would perhaps be the best person. But this wasn't his ideal situation, so he could allow Wufei the point. "Not my fault the birthday boy showed up early to his party."

"This comm is for intel only," Trowa said.

Duo snorted. "My intel is telling you to check your six. Because there's a stick rammed up somewhere back there."

The chuckles he got from Quatre sounded like the man was horrified he'd made the sound. "Don't, Junior. None of us are used to this."

None of _them_ were used to it. That was the real joke, wasn't it? Because he was falling into the conversation easily, the latest in a long line of them, and no one else had ever done it before. He remembered the videos Heero had shown him and had to bite his lip. "Yeah. My bad."

The ship backed off. Just for a moment. Not even long enough to throw up some sort of shielding or to turn its guns. Just enough to back up, turn the tiniest bit, and get shot at by Trowa. Deathscythe caught video of Quatre taking down one of the Leos, then moving to help Wufei. The enemy ship suddenly found itself defending itself from the fire of Wufei's Twin Fangs. Heero chased down the Aries nearly behind Howard's ship and engaged it. Duo scooted around enough to keep both the enemy ship and the Aries in sight.

Howard took her in fast, Duo had to give the man that. He knew his way around a battle. The ship twisted away from the ongoing battlefield below and made for the back of the estate instead of its front. Duo trailed along in its shadow. Two more Leos jumped out of the ship. Deathscythe counted five soldiers on each of the Leos' shoulders, holding on for dear life. He grimaced and targeted one with the shield.

_We'll take greater damage._

Of course they would. It was their _shield_.

The enemy Leos had less maneuverability than Aries' in the sky. And they certainly weren't anything like the Taurus mobile dolls that could dodge a beam blast when the muzzle sat on their skulls. He took a deep breath and fired.

Hit. Direct hit, straight into the throat. The Leo and the hapless losers on it rained down to the ground. "One down," he said. But the other slipped below his radar, beneath the butt of Howard's ship. "Need help on Howard's y-six."

"On it," Trowa said.

The comms were almost creepily quiet. Duo was used to all of them shouting suggestions, coordinates, insults. Random observations. Hell, with boring fights like these, they'd once talked about which Shakespeare character they would be. Another time, they'd traded songs. Once, Heero and Wufei had begun some debate about old-timey physics philosophers or something. Something about whether squares could be circles, Duo hadn't understood a thing. But the point had been they'd chatted like – well, like normal people. Nothing doing now, of course. These guys had issues for their issues.

It felt like forever, but after only a couple of minutes, Howard finally touched down on solid ground. Duo pulled up beside him. Deathscythe had already run diagnostics on himself – on the suit. (Good thing none of this was even remotely confusing.) They were banged up pretty good. Duo could already feel the bruises forming on his own body, even though he hadn't taken a single hit. Deathscythe hadn't taken any major damage, thanks in large part to subtle movements Duo had not in any way chosen himself.

"Wufei, move ten meters south," Quatre said. "Line up your trident with the enemy's left side." Duo turned in time to see Wufei hesitate for an instant before doing as told. Quatre swung at the enemy once, twice, then made a wide thrust to the enemy's left. When the Leo turned to take advantage of Quatre's open flank, Wufei struck.

Duo smiled.

So maybe not so bad on the communications, then. Trust Quatre to take care of the problem. Just as he had before.

"Howard, you on the frequency?" Duo asked, Deathscythe catching Heero as he flew above, even as Duo kept his main screen on Howard's ship, waiting to see Relena leave the thing for the safety of the building. "Hey, the Maguanacs are waiting for her, right?"

"Yes." Quatre and Wufei defeated their enemy at the same time the blond answered. "Keep guarding her, Duo. I know it's not the best position for your suit, but it will leave us the chance to surround the building properly once we–"

The enemy ship zoomed low overtop the estate. Duo flew to the air. "Deathscythe!" he shouted, his yell for his friend echoing in his head. Deathscythe had already begun to respond, however.

The enemy ship would be best served ducking in low for a quick, fatal shot to Howard's ship. It would go for the bridge, the life support, the engines. Duo threw himself between them. "If you could hurry, Howard, that would be great!"

"Yes, let's just rush out there and get ourselves killed, shall we?" the man shouted. His voice sounded a bit staticky.

"Would you rather stay in there and get yourselves killed?"

"Duo!"

Relena's voice. It sounded almost tinny in his ears, and it took him a moment to realize it was because she wasn't even in the same room as Howard. She must have tapped into their communications. "What's up?" he asked.

"Is it safe?"

Duo checked around. The Leos were on the other side of the estate, battling between at least two of the others. With both Wufei and Quatre coordinating together, Duo didn't give them much longer. The foot soldiers, if they'd survived, wouldn't make it past the Maguanacs holed up by the windows of the building. The ship above and the Aries were the real dangers.

Deathscythe threw trajectories at him so quickly he could only see a flash of numbers and angles. He found the Aries just as Heero sliced through its arm, then its head. The ship wasn't exactly hard to spot. Instead, he focused on its working guns and his own burgeoning alarms. One arm had taken an unfortunate hit to one of its joint plates, the thing locking almost in place over 'Scythe's chest. He was only distantly aware of the pain, his mind too busy with everything else to bother with it.

"Yeah, but you gotta hurry," he said.

"On it."

He _liked_ this Relena.

Howard spluttered out some sort of argument, but he was the only one. If Sally or Senior or Hilde had anything to say about it, they kept it to themselves. So did the other pilots. Noticing this, Howard stopped, as well. "Fine!" the geezer finally snapped.

Despite her words, Relena still took precious minutes getting the hell out of the ship. Duo was left flying back and forth over the ship's surface in an effort to minimize damage to the ship. With the Aries gone, however, Heero turned his attention to the ship. "Incoming," he said, a warning Duo hadn't even been expecting from the man, before he sliced a shallow cut in the metal, unwilling to cut deeper for fear of blowing it up and damaging Howard's ship with Relena still inside.

"Can you lure it back?" Duo asked. The enemy ship swung its guns around on Heero, sensing the immediate danger, but it didn't stop firing as it did. Duo was forced to flip around and chase after the bullets as they grazed dangerously close to the engines. His suit blared another warning. Deathscythe unconsciously informed him of damage to one of his wings, but Duo could already feel it. His left shoulder blade burned. "Relena! Move it!"

Just as he spoke, the cargo bay doors opened to show Relena and Hilde wheeling Senior into the estate. Senior was awake, a gun in his hand, his eyes sharp as he watched the area for land-based attacks. Duo sighed a breath of relief. "Howard? Sally?" But just as he called, he saw them, Sally taking their flank, another gun in her hand. Howard stood by Relena, probably prepared to use himself as a shield.

He used his Vulcans to take out another gun, giving him and Relena's group enough time to race from the ship. It was still in a position of vulnerability, sitting right there by the estate just waiting to get blown up. The word _go_ echoed like a mantra in his head. He landed on the ground once more, able to use his bulk more effectively now that he wasn't guarding something a bit larger than him. And he could finally pull out his scythe. Unfortunately, with only one arm, it could only help him so much. "'Scythe?" he asked, shocked to hear himself breathing in gasps.

The data flashed across the back of his eyes. Right arm down to twenty percent viability. Left arm down to eighty-seven percent. Legs over ninety percent viability and fully operational. Right wing at seventy percent, left wing down entirely. Minor dents and scratches over pretty much the entirety of the suit. He was down one Buster Shield, too. "Just a typical shitfest," he said, and felt Deathscythe's humor in his own head.

Meanwhile, Heero had indeed done as Duo asked and pulled the enemy a bit away, the guns chasing after him like someone chasing a fly with Raid. Heero dipped and twirled through the air like a swallow, his Gundam's wings glinting.

The knowledge entered his head that Senior hadn't been watching Heero's wings in the previous battle, his gaze caught instead on Wufei's Twin Fangs as they swung out and clamped around a Leo's head. Senior's mouth had gone dry at the sight.

_Way too much information, there, 'Scythe!_

_It was just an interest in aesthetics. His mind had also been on Schbeiker's hands when she grips the butt of a gun_.

Duo gagged.

Finally, Relena and her group made it inside to relative safety, two Maguanacs holding the door open for them, rifles in hand, and then slamming them closed once more the instant everyone was inside. "They're in," Duo said, and heard a collective sigh of relief from the others.

"Let's take care of the rest, then," Quatre said.

There couldn't have been much of a force left. They'd thought more suits and mercenaries had survived, but apparently not?

Deathscythe flashed another warning. Duo sighed. "I jinxed us, guys. Sorry. This is my bad."

Another ship had shown up.

"It's small. No more than another dozen mobile suits," Heero said. Duo rolled his eyes. Some things.

Someone sighed. There was a slight chance it was him. "All right, then" Quatre said. "We'll just have to rinse and repeat."

"Fuck that," Duo said. As if it were his own hand, he swung his scythe out and took once more to the skies. "This time, I get to play."

In his head, Deathscythe laughed.


	16. Outline To The Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This last 'chapter' is nothing more than an outline I'd once written to guide me through the rest of the story. After abandoning this work, I told my followers that they could ask for this outline so they could get the basics of the ending to this. I'm placing it here, as well, so that those who come across this may still receive some semblance of closure. Thank you very much to everyone who supported me while writing this.

The others guard Relena and the device as Duo and Heero step through the dimensional portal, using Duo as the machine’s focal point for its dimensional map, so to speak. The machine seems to struggle with opening anywhere, but finally does so. They step through an almost-vortex Duo calls “far too Star Trekky.” Their goal is to simply destroy the one on the other side, so that those who had destroyed Duo’s world would not have the chance to do so to another. Of course, the room they enter is infested with enemies, some of whom were at that moment studying the apparent fluctuations emitting from the machine. They must make a hasty retreat into the building after Heero gets injured, taking a long gash to the side of his leg when he shoves Duo, who freezes in remembered horror at the sight of his dimension (thus reminding Duo of the first time he’d met HIS Heero, when he’d shot the man’s leg and made a similar gash of his own, making his reaction to the place worse). With Heero yanking him away, Duo shoots the machine they came through in order to damage it as best they can. Sparks fly; the portal they stepped through flickers and closes, and they run. It’s thanks to Heero’s stalker-ish knowledge of Relena and her building that they find a place to hide in a lost alcove, something Duo can’t help but mock incessantly. Heero sends him almost droll stares.

After about an hour, Heero’s lips thin. “We should hurry,” he says, and tells Duo that he feels a tingling sensation along his limbs and at the back of his mind. Duo has begun feeling it, too, with dread. It’s the same sickness he’d received when traversing into Heero’s world. He jokes nervously that at least now he knows that Quatre was likely right, which meant he wasn’t going to die. Probably. As long as they get back.

Obviously, their attempt to return to the machine gets hairy; enemies are on the lookout, and several people guard the entrance to the vaults. The battle takes some serious time, and Duo, seeing this new Heero he cares for getting shot at by the same group of people who had ended up killing all of his previous friends, rages. He takes insane risks, leaping over an enemy to get into the room, accepting attacks from all sides and jumping wildly, using acrobatics Trowa had taught him, kicking and tripping others as Wufei had taught him, recognizing strategies as Quatre had taught him, and fighting like a madman, his focus sharpened as Heero had taught him. He is aware of the world in pinpoints – Heero, marked as an ally in his mind, and any sign of movement marked as an enemy. Heero locks the door behind them as the battle finally ebbs to a close, then hurries to Duo’s side. Duo is horribly injured (of course, haha, when do I NOT injure him???), one arm nearly useless once the adrenaline wears off, but so is Heero, and Duo powers through the pain in order to get to the portal, desperate to at least save Heero.

The machine is busted. Duo snarls. Tears spring to his eyes as he thrusts his hands into the busted machinery. He doesn’t let he tears fall, but his tension mounts and mounts. His hands start shaking, until Heero carefully pulls him aside and starts taking pieces of equipment. Despite the blood oozing into his eye and the rib that must be broken, he carefully takes essential pieces of the portal apart and turns to Duo. “Take what you need from this and create another.”

Duo and Heero yank pieces of tech from anything they can get their hands on. Someone tries to pry open the door from the outside, and Heero goes to reinforce it with the now-useless remains of the portal. Duo grits his teeth and focuses on recreating the machine he’d made before.

The specs of the machine are in his head, but even with better scraps and Heero’s help (in-between blocking the door and setting up some sort of trap on it), it still takes long enough for the headache to get much worse, for his fingers to start shaking for a completely different reason. The background sounds of shouting and pounding had faded from his attention so well that he’s almost surprised when something explodes. He barely manages to not jump at it, thus keeping the wiring he’d been working on from being ruined. Heero turns to the sound, his and some enemies’ guns in hand, though one gun is aimed slightly lower than usual; that rib must be grating horribly against his organs.

The door caves in. An opening shows. Heero shoots through it, but that only pauses the enemies for a short moment. Duo glares at the makeshift tube he’s confiscated for this; the panels from the portal simply need to be wired up properly, but even with that, he can’t guarantee they’ll return to the right dimension. He finally finishes as enemies burst into the room. If they shoot the machine he’s just wrangled together, they’ll both be trapped.

Duo grabs one of the guns from Heero’s hand and orders him inside. Heero snarls and grabs Duo’s elbow, yanking him within, as well. The space is cramped. “One of us has to hold them off!” Duo snaps. Heero is already bending over the portal controls, placing his palm over the array they’d used with Duo in the previous dimension. Bullets thunk into the tube as he works. One bullet slams through the metal; Duo uses his confiscated gun to plug the hole with his muzzle and presses the trigger. Heero steps back from the scanner once it finishes and, without waiting to ensure the machine has locked on to a target, starts it up.

Duo’s gun heats up quickly, and he has to let go. It fires its rounds in reaction to the heat, though Duo doesn’t feel the temperature rise inside the tube other than from the gun. In order to avoid touching it, he has to lean directly in front of Heero, his hands on either side of the man to keep from pressing full-bodied against him. Heero grabs Duo’s waist – careful of the bruise forming along his upper back from an enemy’s kick – and pulled him flush against him. Duo is Instantly Aware of everything, haha.

The trip is more reminiscent of Duo’s first time, the chaos and bumpy ride, than the smooth course the official portal had set. He and Heero end up pressed on their butts, Heero’s back to one end of the tube while both brace their feet against the other. Heero doesn’t let go of Duo.

When finally they stop, neither moves for quite a while. Duo feels comfortable. Slight guilt comes at the thought of his previous Heero, but that something new comes back to him. He knows Heero is likely cognizant of his interest – after all, it is growing in more than one way at the moment – but he doesn’t say anything. In fact, those fingers on his back tighten.

Duo tries to move away and is caught by Heero’s hand. “You cared for him,” Heero says. “The other me. You cared deeply.”

Duo blushes. The reminder causes him pain, especially now. “I loved him,” he whispers. It feels like a dirty secret.

Heero’s arms tighten around him. “And now?”

Duo recognizes Heero's intent. “You aren’t him. I know you aren’t.”

A short silence. “But?”

Duo shakes his head. “No buts.”

More silence. “When I saw your videos, I recognized what this was for.” Heero moves one hand to touch the ring on Duo’s finger. His thumb presses against the number one. “Your interest in me made more sense.”

Duo feels the hot press of tears against his eyes. He frowns. The gun is still too hot to let them get up, but he wants to jerk away from this conversation. “I’ve known from the start that you aren’t him. That’s not why...” He recognizes belatedly the verbal trap Heero had set on him and grits his teeth. If Heero wants to lay the trap, then he shouldn’t be surprised when the trapped animal bites back. “Despite your many flaws – and his many flaws – I somehow felt something, anyway.” He glares up, craning his neck. Their lips are very close together, but in the heat of his anger, it doesn’t really register. “I loved him for who he was. And I care about you, too. So what? You don’t even know me. The only thing you’ve seen is how I feel about him, and that has nothing to do with you.”

“Did you think it wouldn’t matter?” Heero wraps a tighter hold around Duo and scoots them up a bit, careful of the heated gun. Duo’s neck doesn’t hurt as much in the new position. “Seeing you loving someone like me. Did you think I could remain unmoved?”

“ _It’s not you.”_

“No. But it is _you_.” Heero cups Duo’s cheek, stares at him for a moment. As if coming to some rational conclusion. He kisses Duo. Duo jerks. He had only been with his Heero for a short time; they had kissed. This was not quite like that. His old Heero had kissed with determination, his feelings taken into a force of action. That Heero, when he moved forward, plunged headfirst.

This Heero, when he moved forward, stalked. When he made a decision, he simply acted, as if it was the only choice that _could_ exist. When he kissed, it felt like the man had already found his path, and would not be dissuaded.

Duo thought it would be very easy to love him.

The others manage to break into the tube, and Heero and Duo crawl out from beneath the gun to Quatre’s and Wufei’s shocked gasps. They seem more concerned with the blood and bruises caking Heero’s and Duo’s bodies than with their close proximity – the metal of the gun is still slightly red from the heat, after all, and Heero’s eyes have returned to that dead look. It took until then for Duo to realize those eyes had blossomed into emotion while they’d been alone.

Sloan at that point feels like clean-up; Preventers find him trying to flee, and only one Gundam is necessary to stomp the place into dust. Duo only allows Trowa the honor because he’s too gravely injured at the moment. Relena barely leaves his side, her fingers always wrapping around Duo’s hand. Wufei nearly hovers, as well, until Sally consistently pulls him out of Duo’s hospital room on the pretense of some duty or other. Quatre chooses to follow Trowa. The lost puppy shadowing makes it clear that something is developing between them.

Duo’s room is divided by a curtain. On the other side of that curtain is Heero.

The moment he’s alone, Heero pulls back the curtain and looks at him. The man had been in surgery for a ruptured kidney, yet he stands as if he isn’t injured. Duo yelps and demands Heero go back to bed. He pulls the curtain back a bit more and sits up. They talk. Duo fiddles with the ring on his finger as, for the first time, he truly talks about his world, his lost friends. It doesn’t make everything better, but it helps to have someone listen without judgment. When finally he finishes – at least for the moment – Heero speaks. “Tell me about him.”

Duo does. He starts simple, listing off traits, things Heero hated, things he loved. He talks about missions, and then how they met. He tells this Heero about the stupid things that Heero did that made Duo lose his mind, pet peeves that drove him up the wall. And he smiles while doing so. And, before long, he cries. He can’t help it, and hates that it happens in front of this Heero, who shows so little patience for such emotions. He hates that he cries at all; boys, after all, don’t cry.

Then this Heero tells, in a matter-of-fact tone, his own life story. Odin Lowe, and then J. He tells Duo how J trained him until he was twenty, until all shows of emotion had been erased, until he forgot what Odin said about acting on his emotions. He tells of never meeting anyone who knew or understood him, of how he lived as a shadow, caring only about maintaining his orders for peace.

“Only one person cared to pull me out of the darkness,” Heero says. “Only one person looked at me and saw more than a weapon.” He gets out of the bed again, ignoring Duo’s squawks. He cups Duo’s face, tear streaks and all. “Even if what I want doesn’t work out, more than anything, I have the memory of someone choosing to see more of me than a gun. You are my friend, Duo Maxwell.” His lips flicker in a smirk. _“Junior.”_ Duo scowls. “You are my friend. And, if I succeed in this… endeavor,” and Duo knows he was about to say _mission_ , the idiot, “you will be much more than that.” Heero covers Duo’s fingers where they twist the ring. “Perhaps someday, I can even replace this.”

Duo jaw drops. Hero takes advantage in the drop in enemy guard and raids its open hangar.

Cue to five months later. Everyone is gathering outside a beautiful villa – the Winner estate. There is an outright disgusting number of white chairs in rows in the yard. Duo and Heero show up together, greeting their friends and grabbing a flute of champagne from a waiter. Duo remarks on the high amounts of swank, only for Heero to say, drily, “I suppose that means you want a small wedding.” Duo sputters and nearly spits out his drink. Heero smirks.

When finally everyone settles into their seats for the start of the ceremony, Quatre and Trowa on either side of a raised dais, the five pilots, Sally, Relena, Duo Senior, and Hilde sit on one side. On the other is Cathy, still looking wide-eyed after a meeting with someone she hardly knew, someone she’d been introduced to by a man in a long braid, and Howard. Both sit next to a long row of empty seats. Each has a name placard standing in the center of the seat. ‘Relena Junior.’ 'Hilde Junior.' ‘Wufei Junior.’ ‘Quatre Junior.’ ‘Trowa Junior.’ 'Heero Junior.'

Duo grins up at Quatre and sends both him and Trowa thumbs up. Trowa gives a tiny smile and tilts his head in acknowledgment. Quatre beams.

Heero wraps a single hand around the back of Duo’s chair and rests his chin on Duo’s shoulder, his gaze glancing around for signs of danger. On Duo’s neck swing four rings. On his left ring finger sits a small band of white gold, a small '1-1' etched into the outside.

The preacher begins his sermon.


End file.
